I learned to ride a bike when I was 5 years old by using my big sister’s bike. I had three big sisters and the bike I used wasn’t the relatively new one the sister closest to me in age rode. Rather it was an old bike that sat in the corner of our garage that no one was presently using. My older sisters didn’t seem to be interested in it any more. The bike was too big for me. I couldn’t reach the pedals while sitting on the seat, and I wouldn’t have been able to ride the bike from the seat anyway because I couldn’t touch the ground from the seat. But the bike had a step-through frame. We used to call such bikes girls’ bikes. I could hold the bike upright by hanging onto the handlebars and standing with one leg on each side of the bike without using the seat. When I rode the bike I stood on the pedals, and didn’t sit at all.

I received my own bicycle for my sixth birthday and it fit. It was a wonderful machine and it was so much easier to ride a bike with a seat that I could reach. They say that once you have learned to ride a bike you never forget how. I don’t think that is completely true, but I still can ride a bike by standing on the pedals without sitting. And, for whatever reason, I am attracted to bikes that are a bit too big for me. I don’t have long legs. My mountain bike, sized for my height, has wheels that are smaller than many other mountain bikes. This means that I can put both feet on the ground while sitting on the seat. The short bike makes it easier to start and stop, especially on narrow paths with sharp turns. I’ve owned that bike for thirty years and with a bit of annual maintenance it will continue to serve me for as long as I want to ride it.

However, this year I added a second bicycle to our garage. The new bike is an electric bike. It has five levels of assistance for pedaling that allow me to climb steeper hills, ride into the wind, and go faster than my other bike. I purchased the bike used and I think that most people who know bikes well would say that I bought a bike that is too big for me. The seat and handlebars are adjustable so I can sit and pedal with ease. But my legs are too short to balance my bike when I stop without getting out of the seat. When I was test riding the bike its size didn’t bother me at all. I mounted it by putting one foot on the pedal and swinging the other foot over the back of the bike. I rode it without problem and when I wanted to stop I got off the seat. I purchased the bike and I have loved riding it. It has an odometer so I know that I have ridden it over 1,800 miles in the past four months. Riding a bike that is too big for me really isn’t a problem, but I’m a bit more awkward when I need to stop.

I confess that when I ride the bike I frequently violate traffic laws. I don’t exceed the speed limit. I don’t ride in the wrong lane. I don’t run into pedestrians. I don’t fail to yield right of way. But I do fairly often execute what is known as a “rolling stop.” When I come to an intersection with a stop sign, I slow to near a stop, make sure that the intersection is clear and then proceed. If traffic dictates, I get off the seat of my bike and come to a complete stop, but most of the time I can slow, but maintain enough motion to stay on the seat and then proceed when the intersection is clear. I ride in places where there isn’t much traffic, so I am frequently the only vehicle at the intersection. The odds of ever receiving a ticket for my violation are very slim. I don’t fail to stop whenever I notice a law enforcement vehicle, but they aren’t looking for bike riders to cite when they are on patrol in the first place.

Riding my bike, however, does make me aware that there are a lot of people who do violate traffic rules in ways that are far more dangerous than the way I approach stop signs. Our village has a 25 mph speed limit and the limit is an important safety item because it is legal to drive golf carts on the street here. And some golf carts don’t go very fast. Sometimes I have to slow my bicycle to follow a golf cart when driving through the village. And we are a tourist town with lots of pedestrians and bicycle riders. Some streets do not have bike lanes so drivers have to be aware of a lot of slowly moving people and vehicles. Many homeowners have posted signs urging drivers to slow down, but those signs aren’t very effective at slowing drivers who are going too fast to read them.

Even though a bicycle is a vehicle as defined by traffic laws, most cars do not yield to bicycles at intersections even when required to yield. I am not as aggressive as some bike riders. I yield to cars whenever I sense conflict. I have no intention of getting hit. If a car and I approach a four way stop at the same time, I yield to the car regardless of whether it is on my left or my right. I don’t proceed into an intersection where there is a car unless I have direct eye contact with the driver and am sure they will not proceed until I have cleared the intersection. As the saying goes, “You can be dead right, and still be dead.”

Technically, the law doesn’t give right-of-way to anyone. It only specifies who is required to yield. All drivers and bike riders are required to “exercise due care and to avoid collisions.”

So if you see a short guy on a big bike, look out for him. He might be as cautious as I am. But he’s likely also having as much fun as I do and might even run a stop sign now and again.

My dear niece, and mother of one of the most charming great nieces in the world, sent an online Thanksgiving greeting yesterday including a photograph of their family standing in front of a huge decorated Christmas tree. Their family has a tradition of starting to decorate for Christmas on the day after Halloween, so they have been working at their decorations long enough to have their home looking pretty Christmasy. We, on the other hand, like to wait until Advent to do our decorating, and we aren’t that much into decorating in the first place. Our tradition since we moved to the northwest has been to purchase a live tree from a nursery that we can plant on the farm after Christmas, so we’ll likely get around to getting a tree pretty soon, because we like to help the tree acclimate to being outside by spending a few days on the porch before being brought inside. Live trees have root balls, which makes them pretty heavy, so we’ve been going in for smaller trees, which suits us nicely. We have a large collection of Christmas ornaments, with a lot of fun stories behind them, so we end up stringing lights on our bookcases and ribbons on our stairway and hanging ornaments around the house in other places besides the tree.

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is to ignore Black Friday sales. That makes sifting through social media, especially email and text messages, quick because I automatically delete any messages with the words Black Friday in the description. It also speeds sorting the mail in our mailbox, which since we pay most of our bills electronically contains mostly advertisements and appeals for donations. A quick sort of the mail with an eye to personal correspondence from family and friends allows us to get most of the mail into the recycling bin in just a few seconds.

Today, however, we might brave the crowds and struggle to find parking to go to our favorite independent bookstore. We’ve taken to ordering books from them instead of the huge online bookseller and though they offer the option of having the books shipped to our home, we like going to the bookstore, so usually have them hold them at the store for us to pickup. Bellingham isn’t a really big city, so usually parking is easily available as long as we are willing to walk a couple of blocks, which we usually are. And a crowded bookstore has a different feeling than a shopping mall or big box store.

We get to make the quick turnaround from Thanksgiving to Advent this year because a colleague who serves a small island church near our home is taking a bit of well-earned vacation so we will be leading worship on Sunday. Their service will include the sharing of communion, so leading worship at their church will be a real treat. We’ve become the usual coverage for this pastor when needed, so we’ve gotten to know this congregation and find ourselves really looking forward to seeing the people. It is a small congregation and they really know how to host a wonderful coffee hour. And for us, who have lived most of our lives a thousand miles from the coast, the short ferry ride to the island is a treat every time we take it.

Anticipation is a wonderful complex of emotions and I find Advent to be an especially appealing season. I’m in no hurry to rush to Christmas. We’ll have 12 days to celebrate when Christmas comes and I like the sense of preparation and anticipation. We’ve already done a bit of Christmas shopping as we like to send packages to our daughter’s family from our house rather than having them shipped from online sellers. And there is no place better to shop for gifts than a bookstore. I’m willing to break my usual Black Friday no shopping tradition for a little adventure. Perhaps we’ll head to the bookstore after I finish chores this morning.

Of course we don’t need to go to the bookstore today, and tomorrow is Small Business Saturday, which would be a good day to support a local independent bookstore as well. I’m not up on all of the various shopping holidays, but Small Business Saturday makes more sense to me than Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I’m pretty sure that I’ll have no problem avoiding online purchases in recognition of Cyber Monday.

The first Sunday of Advent is the day of hope and it seems that hope is especially needed in our world today. Advent hope is deeper than wishing for a positive outcome. It is energizing and engaging in action with a vision of a better world. Unlike the message that you might receive from some congregations, the Bible does not focus on life after death. God’s realm is not presented so much as some other place where we go when we die, but as the pursuit of justice and peace in this life in this world. The stories of Jesus are stories of healing and justice being delivered to those who have been marginalized by society. Advent hope is rooted in God’s promise to never abandon humanity and in our response to that promise with our promise to be people of God.

The prophets speak of hope in the midst of oppression, empire, and circumstances that might not, on the surface, inspire hope. Our hope is not based in a desire for wealth or power or fame, but rather in a simple call to serve. Our promise does not come with a dramatic overthrow of government or a sudden suspension of the everyday, but rather in the blessing of a child born vulnerable and in need of care.

Of course there is more to hope than I will write in my journal today. I have to save some of my ideas for a sermon on Sunday. Having the gift of thinking about hope and the promise of Advent in my life is a joyful and energizing inspiration for today and for the days to come. May you discover new depths of hope as we enter this season of anticipation.

Like many other parts of life, the celebration of Thanksgiving is complex. There are many reasons to express our gratitude and having a national holiday that focuses on the act of giving thanks is a worthy tradition. As long as humans have existed, gathering for a shared meal has yielded important benefits for individuals and for society. Scientists report that eating triggers the brain’s endorphin system, which is a series of chemical reactions that enhances well-being and connection. Eating with others has a multiplier effect on the endorphin system. Eating the same thing at the same time increases trust and connection between individuals.

On the other hand, in human history there have been plenty of feasts that have also been ways of showing submission and control. Harvest feasts at which landowners have provided a large meal for workers have not led to equal distribution of resources. Even family meals can be times of friction and displays of power.

I grew up with stories of the thanksgiving feast of the Pilgrims and Puritans shared with their indigenous neighbors, which were probably not very accurate to the reality of the meal shared in the fall of the first year after the Mayflower landed. It is likely that much of the food was supplied by the natives whose generosity had enabled the survival of the Pilgrims who arrived woefully inadequately prepared for life in a new country. The mortality in the community during the first winter was high and people felt a sense of relief about simply surviving. The natives had experienced incredible mortality from the introduction of diseases for which they had no immunity by previous explorers and settlers form Europe. It may well be that the first thanksgiving meal created bonding around shared grief as much as around a shared sense of thanksgiving. I’ve eaten enough funeral dinners to know that sharing food can be an important part of living with grief and sharing grief creates important bonds between people.

Despite the way that a clerk at the grocery store was dressed yesterday, the images of Pilgrims dressed in black with top hats and buckles on their shoes is probably no more accurate than images of Indians wearing nothing but feathered headdresses and loincloths. I have friends who are enrolled members of Native American tribes who do not celebrate Thanksgiving because of its glorification of a false narrative and its amplification of colonialism.

Still, celebrating Thanksgiving has been an important and meaningful activity for me and the people in my life. After experiencing thanksgiving as important times of family gathering in my childhood, we learned new traditions when we moved to Chicago for graduate school. Our student budget did not afford a trip back to our Montana home and so we shared the celebration with other students who lived to far away to go home for the holiday. Many of those students came from places that did not observe American Thanksgiving and so we improvised our celebrations. A potluck dinner in a student apartment afforded an opportunity for feasting and connecting. At our second thanksgiving as students in Chicago, a classmate who grew up in a family that owned a restaurant taught me how to carve a turkey after Susan had cooked the bird for our shared meal. It is a skill that I’ve employed many times since.

Since we retired, we have had a new to us Thanksgiving tradition. Perhaps prompted by moving to a new place in the season of Covid while shifting our role in the community of the church by retirement and moving near to our son and his family who have a tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving at the home of his wife’s grandmother in California, we have had more muted celebrations in recent years. We still prepare a sizable meal. I will soon begin baking rolls from scratch and there is a turkey breast thawing in the refrigerator. Susan will make a pie and we’ll have sweet potatoes and stuffing and special salads. But we plan to sit down at the table with just the two of us, reveling in the memories of past thanksgiving celebrations and enjoying intimate time together.

Among the things for which I am grateful are the places where we have lived and the people with whom we’ve celebrated in the past. I was less than excited that our first call to serve as ministers was to congregations in rural North Dakota. I was a child of the mountains who had some biases about flatlands and the people who live there. We joked about the tallest thing on the North Dakota prairie being a farmer standing in a field. That joke didn’t even originate about North Dakota. It would be a more accurate description of the Muffler Man advertisement on the edge of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which is a giant sculpture of a man holding a muffler erected in the middle of a very flat field. Actually the North Dakota State Capitol is a 21-story Art Deco tower and the part of North Dakota where we lived had plenty of hills and valleys.

Living in a small town a few miles from the location of the last buffalo hunt of the near extinction of the gigantic herds of American bison that once roamed the plains in the millions and were hunted in part of destroy the livelihood and culture of plains tribes we experienced a complex pattern of relationships. In the small town we depended upon one another. We shared meals with those whose political beliefs were different than ours and we forged deep relationships with them that continue to this day. As rich as those relationships were and still are, we were aware of racism that remained in our community which had been part of the territory originally granted to the Great Sioux Nation in the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868 and illegally abrogated by the US congress 21 years later forcing Lakota people onto multiple small reservations. Life in an isolated small town is complex, but the demands of small-town living require people to deal with complex history and relations. I am deeply grateful that those experiences were part of our lives and shaped the people we have become.

There are many other meals that come to mind as we prepare our celebration today. The rich tapestry of memory is another source of deep gratitude. However you celebrate, may this day bring you gratitude for the places and people of your life and may you once again be reminded that you are part of a story that is much bigger than you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My father was an excellent napper. He could fall asleep in a brief amount of time and wake refreshed and ready for more activity. I can remember him lying flat on the floor with all kinds of family activity surrounding him. He’d nod off for a few minutes, then get up and get on with his day. He was a big fan of his recliner chair, where he would take a brief nap after dinner, which was our noontime meal, when he had the time.

I am like my dad in that way. Unless I have appointments or other reasons that don’t allow time, I enjoy a nap most days. I can sit in my chair for 15 to 20 minutes and sometimes more. The pause gives me a feeling of renewed energy. I guess it would be fair to put my naps into context. I don’t have very normal sleep patterns in the first place. I rise in the middle of the night most nights and then go back to bed for a second sleep, often after having been awake for an hour or more. Most of my journal entries are written after having slept for 3 to 4 hours before returning to bed for a second, sometimes shorter, period of sleep. Add in my nap and I think I get the recommended eight hours of sleep every day. I just don’t get it all in one stretch.

Both my father and I managed time with short sleeping hours during our working years. My father would rise at 4 or 4:30 am and go to work at the airport, taking advantage of the cool air for small craft mountain flying. After 3 or 4 hours completing a flying job he would be at his shop serving customers. Most evenings he worked later than his employees. Whenever possible he took an extended break at mid day, coming home for the big meal of the day and getting in a nap before returning to work when possible. For most of my working life, I would go to the office early in the day, before people expected a pastor to be in the church. I would prepare for worship, write articles for the newsletter, plan meeting agenda, and complete desk work before turning my attention to the people who came to the church. For most of my working life I was on call for a variety of emergencies and got used to getting up in the middle of the night to respond to a community death, a crisis at the hospital, or some other need.

Now that I am retired, I don’t receive those calls in the middle of the night. There is really nothing that would prevent me from sleeping all night long except my own habits.

I’ve read quite a few articles and studies over the years about sleeping patterns. I’m aware that sleep is a factor in all kinds of health challenges and that sufficient sleep is necessary for the prevention of a number of diseases. What I have not seen is much science around when sleep is most useful. Experience, however, has taught me that different people have different rhythms to their days and that there is no “one size fits all” sleep pattern.

Part of my experiential understanding of sleep comes from the simple fact that I have enjoyed a long and meaningful marriage with someone who doesn’t got to bed at the same time as me or get up at the same time as me most nights. Our differing sleep patterns are so much a part of our life that neither of us is bothered by sharing a bed part of the time and being alone in the bed at other times. When we were newly wed and students, we realized that she was able to do good work late at night and often stayed up to complete projects. I, on the other hand, was inefficient late at night and could accomplish more by getting up early in the morning.

We also have very different patterns when it comes to napping. I nap more often than she and when I nap about 20 minutes seems right. I don’t fall into a deep sleep, but rather enjoy a restorative rest period. When she does nap, a longer time seems to work better for her and she often falls into a much deeper sleep. 90 minutes seems to be a good amount of time for her. Neither of us would be better rested or happier if we tried to follow the other’s pattern.

I think that napping is probably more art than science. Tuning into your individual needs and circadian rhythms is something that develops over time and also changes as time goes by. One trick that I have for napping is to either set an alarm or to ask a family member to wake me if I have a commitment after a time of sleeping. Worrying about waking on time can prevent me from relaxing into restorative sleep. Knowing that I will wake in time for an important meeting or event allows me to relax. It is common for me to wake before the alarm or wake up call feeling refreshed and ready to get on with my day. It seems as if I don’t need the alarm to wake up as much as I need knowing it will be there to allow me to relax and go to sleep.

I don’t know if it is because I nap or if it is just the way that I am, but I rarely have trouble falling asleep. I don’t seem to need much of a bedtime ritual. I simply lie on the bed and go to sleep. Conversely, when I am awake I get up from the bed. I rarely spend any amount of time lying awake in bed. Others, however, find it difficult to go to sleep and often lie awake.

The bottom line is that if you have made it to the end of this journal entry, you probably haven’t learned anything that you didn’t already know. I don’t have advice to give to others when it comes to napping and sleeping. It is something we all do, but we seem to have many different ways of doing it. And that, it seems to me, is not a problem. And if it was a problem, I’d probably want to sleep on it before tackling it anyway.

Since we have moved out here we have a new Thanksgiving tradition at our house. Each Thanksgiving our son and his family make a trip to San Diego for a family Thanksgiving with his wife’s family at her grandmother’s home. A week in a sunny place is a pleasant break from a place that sees a lot of rain in November and our grandchildren having a relationship with their great grandmother is a special bonus for everyone. Our Thanksgiving tradition includes caring for their place while they are gone.

Our son and daughter in law have a small acreage with a few animals, so there are daily chores. This year there are four cows, so I toss a few bales of hay, add a few scoops of grain, and make sure that the water trough in the barn is full each day. The cows have access to the pasture, but when it rains they tend to spend most of the time in the barn.

There are also chickens, which are easy. They are fed a mixture of grain and pellets and they need fresh water each day as well. In November, egg production slacks, and this year the chickens are mostly pullets so there are only one or two eggs a day to gather. I can complete the chores at the farm in a half hour.

Then there is the added chore this year of providing care for their puppy. She is just six months old, so still needs training. We have a fully fenced back yard, so we bring her to our house when they are gone. She has been trained with a crate since she was weaned, so we have a secure place to leave her if we need to be away from the house and we keep her downstairs so she doesn’t have access to the bedrooms. Of course she needs time each day at the farm so that she continues her training with the other animals. I take her to the farm when I do chores and let her run and play and make sure that she behaves around the chickens. That involves training her about loading and unloading from my pickup, which is higher than their car and a bit of a challenge for her. She’s still a puppy after all. And she needs to have chew toys constantly available. If she finds a bit of paper or a napkin on the floor or if someone forgets and leaves the bathroom door open so she can get to the toilet paper, she can make a big mess quickly. When she stays at our house I make a daily trip to the back yard with a shovel and rake to clean up her messes. And, as a puppy, she thinks she is always hungry. We feed her while we eat breakfast and dinner, but she goes after her food so aggressively that she is done by the time we get seated for our meal and begs for more. We feed her out on our deck, so she has to wait while we eat and sometimes whines at the door interrupting our meal. We take her on our walks with us each day so that she gets some leash training and learns to behave when she meets another dog being walked. So it is a bit extra work, but all in all not bad duty.

I enjoy the farm chores. We had chickens and other animals when I was a child, so I’m used to having the chores and I worked on my cousin’s cattle ranch as a teen, so I’m at home with the cows. It is kind of fun to have a dog in my pickup as I head to and from the farm each day. Both of us like to drive with the windows down and a bit of fresh air in the truck
I guess I should mention that the puppy is a Newfoundland dog. The name of the breed comes from the Dominion of Newfoundland before it became part of the confederation of Canada. They are known to be sweet-tempered, gentle, and fairly easy to train. Originally bred to assist fishermen, they have been essential to water rescue operations for hundreds of years. They are excellent swimmers with partially webbed feet. Their heavy fur is oiled so they dry quickly and retain their body heat even when the water is cold. They have a reputation as excellent “nanny” dogs, capable of watching over young children. Our son’s two year old is particularly attached to the dog who allows him to climb on her, nestle in her fur and even sleep next to her. In years past black and black and white or Landseer dogs were favored. Our son’s family’s dog is mostly black with a white bib under her chin. She is female, so won’t get quite as big as a male, which can grow to 180 pounds. When fully grown sh’ll probably be 120 to 140 pounds. Right now she is about 85 pounds and tall enough to rest her head on the dining room table when standing. When she accidentally steps on my foot, I know she’s there. And when we go for a walk, I get a real workout.

Yesterday, I found myself breathing heavily as she strained against the leash when she wanted to run to play with other dogs or when she smelled something interesting to her as we walked. She has no trouble keeping up with my pace of walking, but there are times when she would prefer a faster pace than my gait. And she can pull on that leash. I’ll be getting a bit of extra workout from my daily walks this week. And lifting an 85-pound dog into my pickup is no small task. I guess it is good training for slinging hay bales in the barn.

We will have a big dinner on Thanksgiving day. I’ll bake buns and Susan will make a cherry pie. We’ve got a turkey breast and sweet potatoes and there’ll be stuffing and special salads. And this year, and probably for years to come, I’ll feel like I’ve earned my big dinner by working out at the farm and playing with the puppy.

Part of the process of learning about a new place is observing art and listening to how that art has come to its places of display. Art often carries different meaning to different people. And it can often be a focus of disagreement and sometimes conflict. A clear example of art becoming the focal point of conflict are several statues depicting Civil War figures, especially some of the statues of leaders of the Confederacy. For some they represent the telling of the story of our nation’s history. For others they represent the glorification of the oppressive system of human slavery that continues to play out in racism and inequality in the United States. When cities have decided to remove statues, either for display in another location, or for disposal, there has been significant disagreement about those choices.

One of the things about which I have had to learn a great deal in our move to the Pacific Northwest are totem poles. The poles, generally carved from large cedar logs, often illustrate significant indigenous stories. But not all of the poles displayed in our region are authentic, and many were not even carved by indigenous artists. Art, like other aspects of culture evolves and changes with time and it can enhance appreciation and understanding to know some of the back story.

Prior to contact with Europeans, there was often conflict between tribes in the Pacific Northwest. The coastal Salish people, indigenous to the immediate area where we now live, had a highly developed culture that involved harvesting seafood, primarily Salmon, but also many other fish, shellfish, seaweed and kelp. They traded with other coastal tribes as well as engaging in trade with inland tribes on occasion. However, they also had conflict, especially with tribes from farther up the coast. North coast tribes not only paddled south to trade. They also came south to raid, plunder, and take slaves from smaller tribes such as the Lummi.

Although there was some culture of carving among Coast Salish tribes, the creation of poles was not part of their history in the same way as it was for more northern tribes prior to the 19th Century. Carving among Coast Salish people was primarily focused on the creation of canoes and the decoration of long houses.

Most of the totem poles displayed in our region come from much after European settlement. Because European explorers and settlers not only brought new ideas to the region, they also brought new threats to the indigenous cultures and people. Among those threats was the rampant spread of smallpox. Some coastal tribes experienced mortality rates from the epidemic that exceeded 70 percent of the total population. Some traditional arts were lost through the process of illness and cultural realignment. Traditional arts were initially suppressed as signs of what the settlers labeled “savage.”

As the United States emerged from the Great Depression in the 1930s, many totem poles were commissioned, carved, and erected in parks and other public places to encourage tourists to come and visit. Sometimes these poles were not carved by indigenous people, but carved by settlers and others in imitation of native art. Poles were erected in parks, often in large numbers in many areas, without regard to the specific stories of the tribes on whose traditional lands they were erected. For some indigenous people the erection of poles became signs of their status as conquered people. Art, vaguely in the style of their former northern enemies, was erected on their land without regard with their traditional stories and symbols.

Culture and art, however, are not static. For some Coast Salish people, carving became a way to express their culture and stories. Even though the creation of poles is an imported art, some native people have adopted the form and use the process of creating art as an expression of their unique stories in the contemporary world.

We have been honored to witness a few celebrations of local carving including the landing of traditional canoes and the dedication of a totem pole carved to journey up the salmon streams as part of a protest of dams that have had a detrimental effect on the number of salmon in the rivers and the sea. The pole was created by the Lummi Nation’s House of Tears Carvers who have for more than 30 years now practiced what they call “totem pole diplomacy.” They carve poles that express indigenous concerns, load them on trailers, and transport them across the country as a way of educating the public on their concerns. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, they carved a pole and transported it to Shanksville, Pennsylvania as an expression of solidarity with the victims of the attack. In 2018, they carved an orca pole and transported it to the Miami Seaquarium to plead for the release of the captive whale Tokitae/Lolita. Poles have been carved to highlight the abuse that took place in boarding schools and to protest the negative impacts of fossil-fuel industries on Native lands.

Even though there carving of poles was not part of the pre-colonial culture of the Lummi people, poles have become important expression of indigenous culture and concern for Lummi carvers.

For us, who have lived many years in traditional Lakota lands in the Dakotas, there is a parallel with the quilt art of plains tribes. Quilting was not a traditional art prior to contact with Europeans. It only became a native art during the forced resettlement onto reservations when the buffalo were hunted to near extinction and missionaries came to teach the ways of the dominant culture to native people. With no more buffalo hides for traditional ceremonies and events, trade blankets and quilts became ways of expressing connection. In contemporary Lakota culture quilts with native designs are an important part of expressing grief and recognizing the lives of those who have died.

Art is always changing and growing and it can often bear different meanings for different people.

Now when we look at the poles in various places in our region we are eager to learn more of the stories that the poles represent and understand more deeply how those stories continue to shape the inheritors of a very complex history.

Today is the last Sunday of the Christian year. The calendar of the church begins with the First Sunday of Advent, the four-weeks of preparation for Christmas. That calendar has changed over the centuries of Christian history. For example, the season of Advent was added to the Christian Calendar as a response to the rapid growth of the Christian church following its formal recognition by Rome in the time of Constantine in 313 CE. in 380, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Prior to that time the focal celebration of Christianity was Lent, a six-wee season of preparation for the celebration of Easter. The six weeks included a formal orientation and training program for new Christians in which they learned the history and theology of Christianity. New members were formally received into the church on Easter morning. With the rapid growth of the church a second season of membership preparation was needed and Advent was added to the calendar as a second six week time of preparation with members being received on Christmas morning. The date of Christmas was not originally selected because of the calendar date of Jesus’ birth, but rather to counter the pagan celebrations of the solstice which church leaders wanted to suppress. In those times the date of birth was not a major celebration. People were remembered on the date of their death rather than the date of their birth. Over the years, the six weeks of advent were shortened to four weeks and the traditions of preparation for membership by extended periods of prayer, fasting, and education faded. New members are commonly admitted on any Sunday of the year in the modern church.

As the seasons and celebrations of the Christian calendar changed and evolved over the centuries, new celebrations were added as old ones faded. Often in the church, we think of the holidays and celebrations of the year and of our traditions to be ancient and long fixed, but in reality the church calendar is dynamic and changing. In the corner of Christianity where I have lived my life, the calendar and the flow of seasons was not particularly emphasized in the period following the Protestant Reformation. When the Pilgrims and Puritans traveled to this continent in search of religious freedom, they were intent on separating themselves from some of the ancient traditions of the Roman church, and did not adhere strictly to all of the days and seasons of the church. Easter and Christmas, however, remained as celebrations and focal points for the church year.

In 1983, during a period of ecumenical cooperation spurred by the Second Vatican Council, many Protestant denominations began to use the Common Lectionary. This cycle of readings and celebrations became the discipline around which my career grew. When the Revised Common Lectionary was adopted in 1992, I, along with many of my colleagues, followed that pattern of readings and Sundays. As a worship leader, I immersed myself in the study of the weekly and daily patterns of reading Scripture and preached from the lectionary almost exclusively. Now that I am retired, I still follow that pattern of readings and find myself grounded in the lectionary.

As a result, I have noted the final Sunday of the Christian year as “Reign of Christ.” I had assumed that the celebration of the day, also known as “Christ the King” Sunday was an ancient tradition, perhaps dating back to Roman times as is the case with other celebrations of the Christian year. I was surprised to discover that it is not an ancient church tradition, but rather a celebration that was added to the Christian calendar in the 20th century.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the last Sunday of Pentecost was changed to Christ the King Sunday beginning inn 1925. In that year, Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King to remind Christians that their allegiance was to their spiritual ruler in heaven as opposed to earthly supremacy, which was claimed by Benito Mussolini. The encyclical Quas Primas by Pius IX was issued on December 11, 1925. Initially, the Sunday was observed on the last Sunday of October, but soon was moved to the last Sunday of Pentecost, just before the beginning of Advent.

Protestants were slower to adopt the recognition of the celebration. Most denominations, like the one I serve, began to observe Reign of Christ or Christ the King with the adoption of the Common Lectionary in the 1980s.

In many corners of the Church, including my denomination, the United Church of Christ, strict observance of the lectionary is becoming less common than was the case a few decades ago. Alternate lectionaries are being observed by many congregations and the emphasis on feast Sundays is becoming less common. However, were I still actively serving a congregation, I would continue to observe Reign of Christ. In fact the current political climate in our nation demands a similar Christian witness to that which inspired the creation of the holiday.

When earthly leaders claim supremacy and seek to increase their powers, the church needs to assert its theology that ultimate authority belongs to God. In this year, as Project 2025 is being realized after a narrow political victory in which no candidate received support of half of those who voted, the United States is moving toward more authoritarian leadership. It is not inappropriate to compare the fascist rhetoric of our time to that of the time of Mussolini in Italy. This is not to say that Trump is Mussolini, only that he and his party make some of the same assertions about who should have authority, and whose rights should be suppressed.

In every generation and in every political climate Christians are called to assert their commitment to the authority of God and the leadership and example of Christ. It seems to me that Reign of Christ Sunday is as important now as it ever was. As we prepare for Advent, it is a good time to remind ourselves of the Gospel message. As a meme that has been circulating among my friends declares, “God does not come to us as we expect. The Spirit does not move under our command. When we expect divine intervention in one way, it usually comes in another. We expect a warrior king to set things right, God sends a baby in a manger. We expect wrongs to be punished, God extends grace and mercy to all.”

May Christ reign in our hearts and in our world.

When we lived in South Dakota we would occasionally make jokes about living in the “banana belt” of the state. Often our temperatures were more mild than was the case in the eastern portion of the state. The Black Hills shielded us from some of the weather that affected other parts of the state. Of course the climate was nowhere near what is required to grow bananas. And the truth was that I didn’t know much about bananas. There are, of course, a lot of things that I don’t know much about, but I learned a little bit about bananas during the time we lived in South Dakota because our congregation in South Dakota had a sister congregation near San Jose, Costa Rica, and I had the good fortune of traveling with groups from the church to Costa Rica.
One of the things I learned about bananas when we walked through the markets in Costa Rica is that the Cavendish variety, which is the type most popular in US stores, probably isn’t the most popular banana eaten by locals in Costa Rica. In the markets in San Jose, Rojo or red bananas are widely available with a red peel and flesh that is slightly pink, are probably the local favorite. Also readily available are Dominico variety bananas with sweeter and more intense flavor. There are other varieties of bananas available in Costa Rica as well, including Gran Enano, Williams, and Valery. We can sometimes get Rojo and Dominico bananas at our local co-op grocery store, but the price is higher than Cavendish. At many other grocery stores where we live, Cavendish is the only banana variety sold. However, most local grocery stores sell organic bananas as well as the regular ones, which is an important distinction.

Bananas have been sold in North America since the late 1800s. In those days, the fruit had to travel long distances by boat and was picked and shipped green, ripening as it traveled. Toward the end of the 19th century a plant disease spread throughout central and South America threatening the economy of the region which had become dependent on large monoculture plantations. In the early 1900s the Cavendish variety of bananas was developed specifically for its resistance to disease and its ability to be shipped long distances.

When you consider all that goes into getting bananas from where they are grown to the display in our grocery stores, the price is remarkable. The price of bananas is generally between 60 and 65 cents per pound. For some reason, Trader Joe’s sells bananas at a lower cost, generally less than 30 cents per pound. For perspective, the large Cavendish bananas sold in most grocery stores weigh about a third of a pound. If you think in terms of three bananas per pound, you can make an accurate cost estimate without a scale.

Like many other items we purchase, there are costs that reach beyond the amount of cash transacted at the purchase. Bananas have a long history of being produced through unfair labor practices. Banana farms are infamous for their disregard for their workers. Large plantations, with workers living on site, are owned by large multinational corporations. The land for the plantations was generally obtained at a very low cost. The plantations control their laborers, often forcing them to purchase necessary supplies at company stores at inflated costs resulting in debt that is used to force laborers to continue to work at low wages in dangerous conditions. Although there are some laws aimed at protecting workers in Central America, they are often poorly enforced.

Among the dangers to workers is pesticide poisoning. Most bananas are grown using large amounts of pesticides. Many countries that are primary exporters of bananas, including Costa Rica, have a poor track record of enforcing pesticide rules. Chemicals that are banned in the US continue to be used in Costa Rica with little protection for the workers that apply them. The pesticides result in the depletion of native pollinators and contribute to the extinction of many species. Chemicals from the farms wash into rivers, streams, and oceans killing marine life.

The negative impacts of bananas go beyond exploitive labor practices and pesticide use. Bananas are generally grown on plantations that have been created by cutting tropical rainforests. Deforestation is a major contributor to global climate change. Irrigation practices result in soil erosion and cause silting in waterways. And, because they have to travel long distances to market, bananas result in the overconsumption and use of fossil fuels. The carbon footprint of the inexpensive bananas we eat far exceeds the amount of money transacted in the purchase of the fruit.

Bananas are just one of the foods we eat that carry with them a complex set of historical, environmental, and human impacts. It is good to learn where our food comes from so that we can make ethical choices. In the case of bananas, we consume fruit that has many beneficial nutrients and can be obtained at reasonable price. However, when we purchase bananas we contribute to environmental and human rights abuses. It is a challenging decision and the more I learn the more complex that decision becomes.

All of this is background to what I think may be the most expensive banana ever sold. A couple of days ago Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun paid $6.2 million for a single banana duct-taped to a wall. The art piece was sold at auction by Sotheby’s in New York. I have to give credit to the artist. Turning 35 cents into 6.2 million dollars is a pretty good markup. The installation has traveled around the world since 2019, with the banana being regularly replaced. It contains instructions for replacing the banana as it naturally rots. The fruit in the piece that was sold had been replaced on the day of the sale and the new owner has pledged to eat it. Usually the old bananas have been discarded, but there are at least two other documented cases of the fruit being eaten over the past five years.

As I ponder the ethics of eating bananas, I’ve already made the decision not to purchase bananas from the auction at Sotheby’s. And I’ve got other uses for my duct tape as well.

I am not an economist and I am not an expert on trade policy, so what follows may just be a political rant, but there are a lot of policies that are being proposed by the incoming US president that I do not understand. One of those policies is the threat to use tariffs. The basic theory behind tariffs is that the use of high import fees will raise the cost of imports to the point that they are more expensive than locally produced goods. This will stimulate demand for locally produced goods, which in turn will increase profits and allow for manufacturing efficiencies derived from increased sales and increased production.

If I understand correctly, this means that you raise the price of goods on the promise that businesses will reinvest profits in ways that eventually result in decreased prices. The intent is to level the playing field by raising the price. Continuing the questionable use of the analogy of a playing field, might it make sense to consider other factors that affect prices? What if, instead of raising prices, policy makers took a look at how prices might be cut? For example, a major factor in the cost of goods is labor. If the proposed policies are put into effect, the plan as I understand it is to raise the prices of imported goods while engaging in mass deportation and tight controls on immigration. Decrease the supply of labor while raising prices sounds like a recipe for increased prices all the way around. It sounds like a cycle. Decrease the labor supply, driving up the cost of labor and the cost of goods. Increase the cost of imported goods. Doesn’t the law of supply and demand come into play at some point and decrease sales due to high costs?

Or, consider another difference in the cost of doing business in the United States vs. the cost of doing business in other industrialized countries. In the United States one of the leading causes in the cost of labor is that US businesses are expected to participate in the cost of health care. Virtually all other developed countries do not put the cost of health care directly on businesses. They do impose taxes for general health care, which is a business cost, but those taxes are nowhere as high as the cost of healthcare paid by employers in the US. Every small business in the US struggles with the cost of health insurance for employees.

The high cost of health insurance is the direct result of the high cost of healthcare in the US. In 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are easily available, the US spent $4.5 trillion on health care, which averages to $13,493 per person. By comparison, the average cost of healthcare per person is double that of other wealthy countries.

High costs might be understandable if the outcomes of the care were better, but they are not. Health outcomes in the US are generally worse than other developed countries. Life expectancy is more than four years less than the average of 10 other comparable countries. The US has the highest infant and maternal mortality of those countries and is one of only a handful of countries in the world where infant and maternal mortality rates are increasing. US rate of preventable mortality is double that of other countries. And to top it off, the US ranks last on access to health care.

Pay more for worse outcomes isn’t a recipe for efficient competition. Policies aimed at repealing the Affordable Care Act and decreasing the number of people insured don’t seem like cost cutting measures in the long run. Removing controls on prescription drug pricing doesn’t seem like a way to drive down the cost of doing business.

Beyond all of this the focus of US health care on treatment rather than prevention was proven to be disastrous during the Covid-19 pandemic. With only 4% of world population, the US experienced 15% of Covid-19 deaths. Even had the country escaped some of the worst effects of bumbled administration and misinformation about vaccination risks, Covid-19 deaths would have been higher than countries that emphasize preventive care such as Norway and Iceland. Now, however, the purveyors of that misinformation and bumbled administration will be given authority over health care policy.

Added to those high costs and deadly outcomes is the cost of medical debt. Interest isn’t inexpensive. 41% of adults in the US have medical and/or dental debt. Medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in our country. And every unpaid debt contributes to the rise in the cost of care provided.

What if US businesses were offered more alternatives to the failing for-profit health care system allowing them to lower medical insurance costs as a way of “leveling the playing field” instead of raising the cost of the goods imported by their competitors?

If cost of living is as major a factor in the choice of voters as the pollsters have reported, how is increasing the cost of goods purchased going to affect cost of living. Try to purchase a pair of socks made in the US. Almost every brand, including the expensive luxury brands, imports stock from other countries. I realize it is unfair to single out one company, but many folk like to do business with Bombas because they give away a pair of socks for every pair sold. That means that customers participate in the cost of getting socks to folks who cannot afford them. Bombas imports socks from several countries, including China. Increase the cost of the imported socks and the inefficiency of the system is compounded. Now consumers are paying for socks and tariffs and other expenses that might not be required if individuals and families weren’t living on the streets due to medical debt.

Then again, I’m not an expert. I’m just one person who is retired, even though I’m younger than the President elect. And I have the luxury of extremely good health insurance, though it eats up a much larger portion of my retirement income than had been estimated by the investment experts we consulted when planning our retirement. And now we have to budget for the coming increase in the price of our socks. That, however, is another story for another day.

There has been a lot of intense weather up and down the Pacific coast this week. Tens of thousands of people, many on Vancouver Island, were without power overnight last night after hurricane-force winds from a bomb cyclone system blasted the region. At the peak of the storm, as many as 300,000 customers of B.C. Hydro were without power. Power was restored to many but around 50,000 homes on Vancouver Island remained without power overnight. Farther South, two people were killed by falling trees in Seattle Suburbs. Our electricity company, Puget Sound Energy, posted that at the height of the storm nearly a half million customers were without power. In a statement on social media the company stated, “We anticipate a multiple day outage and encourage customers to make alternate plans as we work to assess the situation and restore power.” A friend who lives across the sound from Seattle on the Olympic Peninsula posted pictures of significant damage to their home caused by a falling tree.

Meanwhile, it has been pretty mild where we live. The bay was absolutely calm yesterday when we went for our walk. I’ve had long bicycle rides every day this week without wind or rain problems. We were able to catch up with a list of outdoor chores yesterday. Our new strawberry plants are all bedded down with mulch. We got the last of our fall bulbs in the ground. I still have a few outdoor chores to complete in the next week or so, but we’re in good shape heading into winter.

Yesterday as we were returning home after a walk down to the beach, a neighbor commented to us, “Winter’s coming!” in an ominous tone of voice. I don’t know that neighbor’s background. Perhaps they are long time residents of this region. Perhaps they moved from some place where winter isn’t very severe. We have neighbors who have moved from Southern California, Texas, and Arizona, where the weather is warmer than we experience. But I’m pretty sure that the neighbor issuing the winter warning hasn’t spent as much time in places where winter weather is severe. We don’t worry about winter much now that we live here. We grew up in Montana, spent a few winters in Chicago, and lived in the Dakotas for more than three decades. We’ve seen blizzards and below zero temperatures and times when it was unsafe to spend any time out of doors.

A little later in the afternoon, we were standing in the middle of the street talking with our neighbor straight across the street from us, exchanging stories. One of the things I like about living where we do is that we have neighbors with whom we visit and live where the traffic is light enough that we can stand in the street and talk. This neighbor used to live in Wyoming and we both have stories of driving on icy roads in high winds picking up our daughters from college. Our daughter attended Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs for a year and a half and his went to the University of Wyoming at Laramie. Driving across Wyoming on Interstate 80 in the winter can be a harrowing experience. When the highway closes due to weather or accidents, the semi trucks fill up all of the towns and begin to line up at the exits. When the wind kicks up and it is snowing the heavy duty wreckers have to work in pairs to get all of the trucks and trailers out of the ditches. We agreed that winter isn’t as challenging here as it was when we lived in our former homes. Our neighbor works for the Washington State Ferry and commutes about an hour each way on the Interstate. He rarely has to deal with snow or ice on the road. He did comment that he gets tired of driving in the rain all of the time, but his work hours are such that he doesn’t have to contend with rush hour traffic.

There are other stories that we want to hear from our neighbors. The neighbor across the street had a knee replacement surgery last summer and recovery was slow, but I saw him up on his roof cleaning out his gutters last week and had to comment on the activity and check in to see how he is feeling. And their beloved retriever came to the end of his life last week and we wanted to express our sympathy. That’s another thing I like about this neighborhood. We know a lot of the dogs that live around us. It is a good sign when you recognize which houses belong to the kids and pets you see.

Our neighbor is ready to say goodbye to 2024. It has been a hard year for their family and they are looking forward to a better year with a bit less pain in 2025. I hope that is the way it works out for them. I don’t want to diminish the challenges of this year, but I wouldn’t characterize it as a hard year. I struggled with the first years of retirement. I hadn’t realized how much of an adjustment it would be for me and it took me some time to figure out how to live into a new home in a new place and a new lifestyle. I am finally settling into it now, though. I have some volunteer work that is meaningful for me. I get to play farmer at our son’s place and I’ve learned quite a bit about gardening. We’re making a slow transformation in our yard and each year brings more flowers. And we’re getting to know the neighbors. Life is good.

As we look forward to Thanksgiving, I have a lot of gratitude. The pace of retirement is suiting me and it is good to be surrounded by good neighbors, to have good friends, and to live near to family. I complain about our church from time to time, but we have made some very good friends at church and share meaningful worship and service with them.

And for this week, the storm has passed us by and left us unscathed.

Several times yesterday I looked at radar and satellite imagery from the National Weather Service. The images and the forecasts have been ominous. A very large storm is slamming into the Pacific Northwest with high winds and an atmospheric river of precipitation. The storm has been dubbed a “bomb cyclone.” Wind gusts of up to 65 mph will be seen in parts of the state, with most of the state seeing winds in the 30 to 45 mph range. the National Weather Service warning of the storm included: “An anomalously strong storm system will generate strong winds across western Washington . . . Be sure to secure loose outdoor items, stay clear of trees and downed power lines, and prepare for power outages.”

Maps and charts showing areas of winds above 40 mph, brightly colored with orange, red, magenta, purple and pink accompanied the forecasts along with a gale warning for East winds of 30 to 40 knots (35 0 46 mph). “It is highly recommended that mariners without the proper experience seek safe harbor prior to the onset of gale conditions.

Forecasters are calling for heavy snowfall with high winds in the mountains making travel impossible at times.

It all sounds very dramatic - until you look at the specific conditions and forecast for where we live. To understand our local conditions it helps to have a map to see all of the islands that are between us and the open ocean. Chief among those islands is Vancouver, with over 12,000 square miles. That’s about the size of the Country of Taiwan. It is bigger than several northeastern states. And between us and Vancouver, in the Salish Sea, the San Juan Islands consist of over 450 islands, rocks, and pinnacles. There are 172 named islands on the US side of the International border.

So here is what is happening where we live, in the middle of the bomb cyclone: The temperature is currently 42 with a predicted high of 51 for today. The wind is blowing at about 9 mph with occasional gusts of 12 mph or so. That is all the wind we are expected to see today. There are a few raindrops falling with a total accumulation of perhaps .06 inches of accumulation. It’s not exactly what I would call a storm.

We have been rushing around the last couple of days trying to button up some outside chores. I blew out the drip irrigation system for our raised beds as we won’t need to be watering for a few months and it will freeze some over the winter. We transplanted strawberry plants and planted some bulbs. I cleaned out the tomato vines and sunflower stalks and raked beds to prepare for next spring’s activities. I didn’t get the patio umbrella inside, but it is stowed and tied up outside and I’ll get that inside later this morning. I’ve got a few additional outside chores to complete and, frankly, I don’t see anything in the forecast that will prevent me from working outside every day this week.

And, on the mountain, the Mount Baker Ski Area has announced that it will open to season pass holders today, with much better opening conditions than last year. It doesn’t sound like folk are going to hunker down and stay inside for the storm.

As far as cyclones go, it doesn’t seem too dramatic.

For tens of thousands of years the Lummi people and other Coast Salish folk knew about the shelter from storms afforded by the islands and the safe living space alongside our little bay. Even major events, such as king tides that slosh around the Puget Sound and north into the Salish Sea cause very little coastal flooding. The Nooksack and Fraser Rivers do flood occasionally and folk learned not to settle too close to the banks in some places, but this region was seen as a safe place to live. The wisdom of the indigenous people of our region is that the gentle climate we enjoy has been part of this region for a long time.

The reality is that the coming storm of national politics is likely to be more devastating than the weather. The goal of the incoming administration and legislative majority is disruption. The list of proposed appointments includes candidates that would never have been confirmed in previous administrations. Those with little or no expertise and experience, others under investigation for ethics violations and crimes including rape are being promised that their pasts will be overlooked in a rush to consolidate power, seek revenge, and impose the harshest restrictions on individual liberty and freedom in the history of our nation.

Like the weather, however, we are sitting in a protected location when it comes to politics. Voters in our state have once again demonstrated a significant divergence from the flow of national politics. If you paint the map with red and blue, we live deep in blue territory. While the president elect of the nation has made no secret of his desire to rule as an unopposed autocrat, the governor elect of our state defeated his Republican opponent despite a conservative activist who recruited multiple people named Bob Ferguson to file paperwork to appear on the primary ballot creating confusion over the Attorney General with the same name who eventually won the race for the position opened by the retirement of Governor Jay Inslee.

We certainly are not immune to the results of the national election, but voters in our region have fended off some of the more dramatic attempts to repeal laws that protect the environment. On a statewide level the 2024 election yielded a victory for environmental protection while on the federal level, the environment seems headed for a big hit. The upcoming presidential term coincides with increased global warming. Deadly floods, storms, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires are already here and the time to limit the severity of the destruction is running out. The second Trump administration will increase greenhouse gas emissions and dismantle federal protections for air, water, wildlife and environment as well as disrupt health and safety for workers.

In the face of the coming storm, we can throw up our hands and resign ourselves to catastrophe, or we can channel our energy and resources into local action. Despite coming national chaos, those of us who live in this sheltered part of the world can continue to work for our local waters and invest in natural climate solutions that build climate resilience. We can turn to small local businesses and neighbors to reuse, repurpose, and repair the goods and materials we need. We can stand firm in upholding and defending Tribal treaty rights and follow the leadership of our Indigenous neighbors. We can continue to condemn racist, anti-trans, misogynist and anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions that endanger members of our community. Perhaps we can create a safe haven in the midst of the storm that provides shelter for some of those at risk.

Which of the following do you think is funniest?

Example One:
Knock, knock
Who’s there
Chooch
Chooch who?
Gesundheit!

Example Two:
Knock, knock
Who’s there
Chooch
Chooch who?
Did you just hear a train?

I am posing the question in my journal because if I pose it to my family the most likely response is rolling eyes. I might just get ignored. I might get someone to say, “Grandpa joke!” But I’m unlikely to get a laugh. If I were to get a laugh, the most likely candidate would be our son, who has become used to being accused of telling Dad jokes himself. One day our grandson said to me, “I don’t want to grow up because if I do I will have to start telling Dad jokes.” Most of my family thought that line was funnier than the jokes I tell.

What do you call a fake noodle?
An impasta.

Why did the cookie cry?
Its father was a wafer a long time.

Where do you go to buy soup?
The stock market.

I’ve been telling puns since I was the age our oldest grandson now is. My mother used to groan. My wife ignores me. Most of my family avoids laughing unless I come up with a really good one. I’ve got several that require elaborate stories to set up the pun, but my family has heard them so many times that they try to interrupt before I can tell the whole story.

Whether or not they laugh, there is joy in simply playing with language. The term “wordplay” is a good description of a particular way of considering words and their meaning that is pleasant. Dopamine is a hormone that serves as a neurotransmitter in the human brain. It plays an important role in many human functions, including movement, memory, and motivation. It has been dubbed the “feel good” hormone because it gives a sense of pleasure. Brain researchers have been able to track the release of dopamine when people tell and hear jokes. It is more than playing with words gives us pleasure, which it does. Playing with words is essential to the process of controlling memory, mood, sleep, learning, concentration, movement and other body functions. Jokes can help ease pain and speed recovery from illness.

Words are powerful. They can be used to harm and they can be used to heal.

One of the great teachers in my life worked hard to get students to take words seriously. I once turned in to him a paper of which I was especially proud. He responded by asking me to re-write it so that it would communicate the same ideas with half of the words. I was annoyed at the time, but it proved to be a very important part of my education. I used the technique of cutting words out of a manuscript as I was learning to preach. There is an economy of language that is necessary for effective oral communication.

One thing that I’ve been doing now that I am retired is to participate in a poetry group. We meet a couple of times each month and share poems that have been written to a shared prompt. When I’ve had a couple of weeks to think about the prompt, I can sometimes come up with a meaningful poem. Almost always the process involves writing a first draft and going through the poem again and again eliminating unnecessary words. I also tend to shorten prose when I edit my writing, but the effect is most dramatic in the case of poetry. I’m a wordy person and it is unlikely that I will become much of a poet because of my tendency to turn any topic into an essay, but the discipline is a good mental exercise for me.

Each year for the past 20 years, Oxford University Press has gone through the discipline of whittling down the verbiage of an entire year into a single word. The Oxford Word of the Year is announced in early December. This year they have released the six finalists early. Sometimes the word of the year is more than one. One third of this year’s finalists consist of two words. Here is the list:

Lore
Brain rot
Dynamic pricing
Demure
Slop
Romantasy

I don’t get a vote in the selection. If I did, I wouldn’t vote for Romantasy. I’m slow to adopt new words. There are plenty of words in the English language without smashing multiple words together or making up new words for situations that don’t require fresh language. People have been fantasizing about romance for thousands of years without needing a smashup.

On the other hand, I probably would also pass on demure and lore. They are both words from the past that have somehow returned to more popular use.

I could easily eliminate slop because I’m not a big fan of onomatopoeia. Well, I like the word onomatopoeia, which itself is a smashup of two Greek words, “onoma” and “poiein.”

That leaves the two entries that are two words instead of one. I would be no good at selecting the word of the year. Actually, I was not impressed with the 2023 word of the year, rizz. The spell checker in my computer still hasn’t learned that word. I probably also wouldn’t have voted for chav, which won one year. I thought the 2013 winner, selfie, was a pretty good choice, but I think that the folks at Oxford totally bombed with the 2015 choice of the crying with laughter emoji. After all an emoji isn’t a word. I think they cheated that year.

Perhaps the best multiple word choice was 2016 when post-truth was chosen with the dash included. It’s pretty obvious the Oxford folks were influenced by the US election in which case the nomination of brain rot, slop, and romantasy all make a bit of sense for this year’s nomination.

Whatever the choice, I did get an essay out of the short list. None of the nominations seem likely to inspire poetry, however. I’ll demur to writing a poem. Look it up. The verb demur is different than the adjective demure.

Rapid City, South Dakota, where we lived for 25 years, has many amazing features for a city of its size. About 60,000 people lived there when we moved to the city. In fact, when we moved there, we lived outside of the city. Our neighborhood was annexed into the city during the time we lived in the area. The annexation, with us included, became part of a wider story of growth. There were about 75,000 residents in the city when we moved from there in 2020. Our move was part of a slight dip in population during the Pandemic, but the city has recovered from those days and now has nearly 80,000 residents. That makes it the second largest city in South Dakota, but it is hardly big enough to be called a city in many parts of the world.

Rapid City is fairly isolated. You have to drive more than 300 miles in any direction to find a city that is larger. It’s service area spans a big distance. We were familiar with Rapid City before we moved there because we had lived in Southwestern North Dakota for seven years and though we lived 175 miles away Rapid City was a place where we traveled for shopping and medical care.

Over the years Rapid City has been home to a variety of amazing people. If one were to tell the story of famous people from Rapid City, one place to start might be with Crazy Horse, leader of the Oglala Sioux. Thought the City did not yet exist, Crazy Horse was familiar with the territory and was a powerful leader of people in a time of life altering change. Over the years, a number of people from Rapid City became well known in the world of sports. During our time in Rapid City, I was privileged to know Dick Green, second baseman for the Kansas City and Oakland Athletics in the 60s and 70s, who played on the winning team in two World Series. I met Adam Vinatieri, placekicker for the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts and all time leading scorer of the NFL at 2,673 points. I once stood with Becky Hammon, player for the Women’s National Basketball Association and current head coach of the Las Vegas Aces. And there are a lot of other people from Rapid City who have become well known for other achievements including politics, military service, and education.

A person who was locally famous during our time in Rapid City was not a native. John Vucurevich was born in Yugoslavia and moved with has family to Lead, SD when he was 8 years old. He worked as a miner, a grocer, a hotel operator and insurance agent before becoming successful in banking and bank holding companies. His financial success resulted in the founding of several important endowments in the city, supporting Black Hills Works, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, United Way, Youth and Family Services, and other organizations. One of his amazing gifts to the city was the establishment of a speakers series. Each year an internationally famous speaker is brought to Rapid City by the Vucurevich Foundation. It was important to Vucurevich that the speakers events be accessible to all of the people of the city. Since the founding of the event in 1993, tickets have been priced at $7 for adults and $3 for students. During our time in the City we were able to hear speakers in person that we might otherwise not have been able to hear were it not for the foundation.

It was through the generosity of the foundation that we heard Dr. Jane Goodall speak in 1997. Her talk continues to inspire me all these years later. She has continued to be an important influencer of my thinking and action ever since. Of course I knew of her work with primates before I heard her speak in Rapid City, and I was aware of her environmental activism. Hearing her speak sparked a unique combination of alarm and concern blended with action and hope that has been a model for me ever since.

People have impact beyond the span of their lives. John Vucurevich is no longer living. Jane Goodall, on the other hand is still traveling the world and inspiring people at the age of 90. As the years have passed, the urgency in her speeches has become more intense: “If we don’t get together and impose tough regulations on what people are able to do to the environment - if we don’t rapidly move away from fossil fuel, if we don’t put a stop to industrial farming, that’s destroying the environment and killing the soil, having a devastating effect on biodiversity - the future ultimately is doomed.”

Dr. Goodall is soft spoken, but she is tough. She had to be tough early in her career when other academic researchers criticized and discounted her research with the chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Others said her approach of associating so closely with the animals she studied, giving them names and even calling them “friends” lacked the detachment necessary for academic research. Her methods, however, gave her a unique perspective that allowed her to make breakthrough observations and advance the understanding of chimpanzees and other primates.

Her legacy is far beyond information about primates. She has inspired people of all ages to become involved and to take action to help the environment. Her children’s program, Roots and Shoots involves youth from preschool to university age working on environmental, conservation, and humanitarian issues. It has chapters in over 140 countries and 150,000 youth participate in over 8,000 local groups.

Goodall has a unique ability to inspire hope while warning of imminent danger. She is no preacher of gloom and doom. She seems to always be able to find reasons for hope even in the face of dramatic setbacks. I’m not the only person who continues to work and act because of her inspiration.

And I’m grateful to an immigrant who had a big part in providing that inspiration to me. Thank you John Vucurevich.

Today is pledge dedication Sunday at our church. The process of making and dedicating pledges has been meaningful to me throughout my adult life. Before we were ordained and called to serve congregations, the making of a plan of giving was meaningful for us. We were students and we had very little money beyond what was needed for school expenses and basic survival. Still, by planning carefully, we were able to make a meaningful donation to our church. The amount of money we were able to donate wasn’t a big percentage of what was needed for the church to operate. Our congregation was dependent upon bigger donors than us, but we felt like we were participating in the process of keeping our church operating. As we began to serve the church and our income grew, it was important for us to think each year about what we might donate. I have always kept a commitment about asking others for money. I only ask others to donate to causes that I have donated to. Early in our career, there were resources from the Stewardship Council of the United Church of Christ that challenged church members to donate 5% of their income to the church. The program acknowledged that there are many meaningful ways to give to others and that those gifts represent part of what is referred to in the Biblical concept of tithe. It also gave a meaningful way for those who were not practiced in proportional giving to get to 5% by suggesting that they evaluate their giving and increase by 1% of their total income each year until they reached the 5% goal.

As I thought about our family’s plan of giving, pledge dedication Sunday became an important point to check in with our overall financial plans and evaluate our giving. As a pastor, I tried to craft meaningful worship experiences around the dedication of pledges and plans of giving. Knowing that some church members mailed in pledges and in more recent years made pledges electronically through the church web site, we made sure that there were cards for each pledge that were brought to the sanctuary and placed on the communion table as part of the process. We added the cards that people brought to church or filled out during the worship service and crafted special prayers to ask that those pledges and plans be blessed. I was also always careful to pray for God’s guidance in the use of the financial resources of the church so that we honored the pledges by investing them in service to others and were careful about eliminating waste from the church budget.

As a retired pastor and a somewhat unpracticed lay member of a congregation, I find pledge dedication Sunday to be a bit less meaningful. We still are careful to review our giving plan each year. This year, we once again made our pledge electronically without involving returning a paper pledge card. And, in place of putting a gift in the offering plate each Sunday or having an electronic withdrawal from our bank account as we have done in the past, we will make our gift to the church by having our broker send a check that comes from our mandatory IRA withdrawal to maximize the tax benefit of our giving. Our lives have changed considerably from the days of writing a check each month. Still, I am looking forward to the prayers that dedicate our pledge.

The Bible often speaks of “first fruits” when it speaks of giving. The concept is simple: make giving the highest priority. Give for the support of others before taking for your own support. Back when we gave by writing checks, I tried to make the church pledge payment the first check written after our paycheck was deposited each month. I encouraged the churches I served to do the same: mission giving first and living on the rest. I believe that congregations need to demonstrate what they ask their members to do. The concept of first fruits serves as a reminder that we give because we need to give as much as the recipient needs to receive. To be members of human community, we have a need to give to the support of others. Churches also have a need to be engaged in mission.

Of course there are many meaningful ways to give. This time of year the majority of the mail we receive consists of appeals for donations. I have a plastic box in which I keep address labels to use when I write cards and send letters. It is completely full. I am going to have to start throwing away address labels even though we have only lived at this address for a few years. I have address labels from organizations to which I have never donated. It seems that sending address labels is one way that organizations try to motivate giving. I also have pens and flashlights from several organizations that probably do good work, but that have not become priorities for our giving. I wish that organizations didn’t send all of that stuff in the mail. One organization sent socks, a pen, a flashlight, cards with envelopes and a calendar in the same mailing. I commented on this to a friend who reported that she received two envelopes: one addressed to her and the other addressed to her husband who died over a decade ago. All of that stuff which we don’t need seems to be so wasteful and the reminder of her loss of her husband is not a meaningful way to invite her to give to this charity.

I still believe that the best way to invite people to give is to simply tell them as accurately as possible what the organization will do with the gifts that are received. One nonprofit that we support each year doesn’t send any thank you gifts. Instead a simple thank you card is sent. The organization does have a place on its web site where those who wish to do so can purchase mugs, reusable shopping bags, caps and other items, but those things are not a part of the annual appeal for financial support. I like it that way. I haven’t bought any of their items. I don’t need them. And I know that all of my gift is going toward the annual budget of the organization instead of to high cost fundraising efforts.

Today as our church dedicates pledges, I will add my own prayers for myself that I might continue to find meaningful ways of giving to support others and the work that organizations do to make life easier for those in need. It is good for me to think about my need to give.

In 1856, a fossil was discovered in Germany of a human-like creature. There were several differences between that creature and modern humans, however. The shape of the skull was different. The length of legs and arms were different. The creature in the fossil was dubbed “Neanderthal.” Subsequent searches for fossils uncovered additional evidence of ancient humans who dwelled in caves including pictographs and petroglyphs. Further examination prompt the discovery of basic tools including spear tips and other implements. Subsequent discoveries prompted the formation of an entire field of study of ancient humans and their predecessors. The study of human origins was spurred by the publication of several influential 19th century books including Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” (1859) and Thomas Huxley’s “Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature” (1863). Darwin subsequently published “The Descent of Man” in 1871.

By the early 20th century the study of the origins of humans had been given the name “paleoanthropology,” and its study became a part of many university education and research programs. Louis Leakey was a Kenyan-British paleoanthropologist and archaeologist. Together with his second wife and fellow paleoanthropologist, Mary Leakey, he pursued the theory that humans evolved in Africa. Together they made significant discoveries at Olduval Gorge. Among their discoveries was the remains of Proconsul Africans, a common ancestor of both humans and apes that lived about 25 million years ago.

The discoveries of paleoanthropologist stirred controversy, primarily among some religious leaders who misunderstood the scientific evidence and interpreted it as standing in contrast to Biblical Creation stories. Scientists persisted in their studies despite opposition and continued to make discoveries about the past. In the 1980s scientists began to use new tools to continue their explorations. By analyzing DNA in living human populations, geneticists could trace lineages backward in time. These new discoveries have led to a widely accepted theory that modern humans, homo sapiens, evolved in Africa, probably around 200,000 years ago. Most DNA studies didn’t use DNA from a cell’s nucleus that contained chromosomes inherited from both father and mother. Rather a shorter strand of DNA, contained in the mitochondria formed the basis of the majority of research. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother. It mutates at a significant rate with the mutations carried along in subsequent generations. This means that scientists can compare the mutations in living populations and, making assumptions about how frequently mutations occur, can trace the genetic code backward through generations.

This scientific tracing of the human family tree has led scientists to conclude that about 200,000 years ago, a woman existed who’s mitochondrial DNA was the source of the DNA in every human alive today. We are all descendants of this single person. Scientists have dubbed her “Eve,” but that is an unfortunate because it leads people to think that she was the first and only human woman. In reality, human population was small 200,000 years ago, but there were probably about 10,000 people. Of those people one woman from that time has an unbroken lineage of daughters. She is not our only ancestor. And she is not our oldest ancestor. She is, however, as far back as mitochondrial DNA can be traced with current technologies.

That is a very long introduction to the beginnings of human migration. According to scientists, modern humans, homo sapiens, began to migrate out of Africa around 60,000 years ago. That human migration continued over thousands of years ago but eventually people moved from one place to another as their population grew expanding over long distances. They also competed with and eventually contributed to the extinction of other hominoids. In the Far East, scattered pockets of Homo erectus continued to exist but eventually disappeared. In Europe and Asia, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens co-existed for about 15,000 years before Neanderthals disappeared.

The great human migration that began 60,000 years ago continues to this day. People move from one place to another, often over very long distances for a wide variety of reasons. They move in search of food, discovering new hunting and growing grounds. They move to escape conflict and war. They move to seek a more comfortable climate. And as humans move around the globe they change the evolution of our species. Paleoanthropologists tell a story of Homo sapiens contributing to the extinction of other human-like creatures, but they also document how humans have contributed to the extinction of other species by over hunting, and participated in the spread of other invasive species that have disrupted the natural order around the globe. One might say that humans are an invasive species.

Around the time that Darwin was writing his books about evolution, European colonists in North and South America were exporting furs of various animals back to Europe. In search of less expensive furs, live animals were domesticated and brought back to Europe. Some of those farm animals escaped into the wild and some thrived in their new environments. Giant South American rodents, known as coypu, and also as swamp rats, were imported to harvest their furs for hats and coat trims. Wild populations of the rodents now occupy every continent except Antartica. They have been recognized as one of the world’s 100 worst invasive species.

I have no interest in raising domesticated swamp rats for their fur or for their meat. Yes, they have been raised for meat. In the 1960s coypu meat was sold in British restaurants and labeled “Argentine hare,” and more recently a Moscow burger restaurant has sold it as healthy meat, leaner than beef. However, I do participate in the raising of another invasive species. Honey bees, dubbed “European” were imported to this continent from Italy and other countries. The bees I raise probably are descended from bees domesticated as long ago as 2600 BC in Egypt. They are not native to this continent. Although I am aware of only one swarm from my colonies, which I was able to capture and return to my hives from the neighbor’s trees, it is possible that my bees have or might sometime in the future migrate to wild locations where they will compete with native bees and other pollinators. It is a responsibility that I take seriously and I try to be as wise a steward of my honey producing pets as I am able, but I stand in the long lineage of humans who have migrated from the place of their birth and participated in the migration of other species as well. Neither me nor my bees are native Washingtonians. We are, however, attempting to be good neighbors and live in peace with the natives. So far it is working out and no mass deportations have been ordered against us. The bees have no fingers to cross, so I’m keeping mine crossed as I watch to see what will happen.

A brief warning: Today’s journal post is a bit whiny. If you aren’t in the mood for another whiny article, you might do well to skip today’s post. I’m sure I’ll move on to another topic soon.

I have long admired courage. I’m not talking about bravado or machismo or brashness. I often don’t admire those qualities and they often are far from courage. Bluster is not courage in the face of adversity. I have, however, been witness to genuine displays of courage over the course of my lifetime. I was able to witness a decade in the life of a woman as rheumatoid arthritis slowly consumed and nearly immobilized her hands and wrists and progressed to other joints until she required a wheelchair for mobility and became dependent upon caregivers for normal living. She lived every day with pain as a constant companion. And she maintained incredible cheerfulness and genuine concern about other people. If she wavered in her faith, I never saw it and we talked about faith a great deal. She demonstrated incredible courage every day and has been a model for me when I have faced minor illnesses.

As pastor I have sat with people as they traveled through the trials of the end of their lives and faced their deaths with courage and dignity. They taught me not to fear my own death and to speak openly of mortality. They also taught me the power of resurrection and made me a better preacher and pastor.

I have been blessed with the presence of a friend as Parkinson’s disease took from him the ability to pursue his usual passion for outdoor recreation. A naturally talented paddler, the loss of balance came on gradually, but over time took away his ability to safely control his kayak and then made everyday tasks like walking and talking nearly impossible. Tremors that simply shook one hand early in the disease’s progress became immobilizing for his entire body. He never lost his passion for his students or the process of teaching even when the disease prevented him from working. He showed true courage in the face of disease and a zest for life in the face of death.

When I was in my twenties I witnessed my father’s reaction to a devastating diagnosis of a very aggressive cancer. He immediately went to work reading and studying and sought to understand every conversation with every new doctor about every new procedure. He held on to his sense of humor and concern for others even when the rapidly progressing disease robbed him of his retirement dreams. He showed me the path of courage that puts service to others above personal ambition.

When I received my own cancer diagnosis, which is not one of a fatal disease, but rather a treatable cancer that one can live with for decades without serious disability, I pledged to avoid the use of battle language and to see this particular journey as an opportunity to grow my faith, learn about the science and art of medicine and become more compassionate for those whose cancer experiences are more severe and more debilitating than mine. I have walked through cancer with two friends whose lives were cut short by pancreatic cancer and I have seen their courage. I understood that my cancer is entirely different and demands far less courage.

Still, yesterday, it seemed as if my courage was failing. Another meeting with another brilliant doctor whose title ends in “ologist” concluded with a variety of options but no clear path of treatment. There is a general sense that more time, more tests, and more appointments will be required before a treatment plan emerges and when the plan does emerge it might be less treatment and more waiting, observing, and tests. The doctor yesterday spoke of regular biopsies and MRIs. But I don’t want either to be “regular.” I don’t want to put my travel plans on hold because the distance between appointments is short and uncertainty about the next season becomes a lifestyle. After my appointment yesterday I went for a bike ride and contemplated scheduling a surgery. I was ready to ask a doctor to simply cut it out. I know that such a decision has side effects that will not only be a part of my life but also impact my family. I know that there is no need to rush to treatment, and there are plenty of reasons to delay. But I’m tired of appointments and procedures and there are times when I just want to make a decision and get it over with. It would not be the path of courage. A passion to get it over with is not courage. Decisions made in the midst of emotional waves are rarely wise. On the other hand I allowed myself to be swept by emotion and embrace “why wait?” when it came to getting married despite the advice of parents and others to wait. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I don’’t want to discount emotion, but I don’t want to rush to irrational decisions, either. I need courage to balance emotion, solid scientific evidence, and multiple modalities of treatment with critical thinking.

I seriously wonder if I have the courage for the next phases of my life.

I remember reading the Diary of Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel’s Night and wondering if I had the courage to live in a country in the grip of fascism where power was abused to victimize innocents and destroy lives. I imagined that I would have the courage to stand up for the right even at the cost of risk to my own safety. And now I read daily of the incoming administration’s intentions to rob fellow citizens, including the majority who supported the president elect, of educational benefits, health care, and environmental protections while deporting the laborers who keep the price of groceries down and embracing tariffs that will certainly drive up the cost of basic essentials including clothing and housing. I see the aggrandizement of the most wealthy among us and the victimization of the most marginalized. I know that decisions are coming that will increase the number of homeless people in my community.

I seriously wonder if I have the courage to stand with those targeted as enemy by a regime that has an endless lust for enemies without and enemies within. Sometimes I wonder if I am too old for the struggles that lie ahead.

So I will once again read of Jeremiah’s argument that he lacked the resources to be a prophet and Isaiah’s call for long term resilience in the face of empire. I will read of Jesus’ compassionate sacrifice and Paul’s promise that faith, hope, and love remain. And I will get up another morning with renewed courage. After all, the courage that really matters is not a personal possession, but a gift from God who has not abandoned our people and who will not abandon me.

I grew up in and around airplanes. Both of my parents were pilots and our family business was Sky Flight, Inc. which operated the local airport, and provided a wide range of aviation services including charter, instruction, maintenance, sales, agricultural chemical application, game patrol, search and rescue, and fire patrol. I cannot remember my first ride in an airplane. I did not know how extraordinary it was for me to be able to fly with my father over Yellowstone National Park multiple times each year. Fire patrol over Yellowstone National Park was done with a two passenger Piper Cub. Sometimes we flew visitors and tourists over the park in a larger airplane and I’ve viewed the park from the windows of a variety of different airplanes both as a passenger and as a pilot.

The community of backwoods pilots was fairly small in the 1950s and 1960s. We paid attention to other operations that flew small aircraft in remote places. In Montana, Johnson Brothers Air Service in Missoula became famous for pioneering smoke jumping for rapid response backwoods fire fighting. Our company worked closely with Johnson Brothers on several projects over the years and I got to ride in a Ford Tri-Motor that was operated by Johnsons. Horizon Air, now owned by Alaska Airlines, got its start with a small charter and sightseeing company in St. George, Utah. And the company that got my attention and captured my imagination was up in Alaska, where one of our pilots went to work for a while. Talkeetna Air Taxi flew flight seeing tours around Denali, then called Mt. McKinley. Denali is North America’s tallest peak at 20,310 feet above sea level. Flying around the mountain and the numerous high peaks in the area required high performance aircraft.

The Piper Cubs we flew over Yellowstone had small four cylinder engines ranging from 95 to 150 horsepower. The tallest peak, Grant Peak, in the Beartooth Range, is 12,800 feet. On a cool morning with light winds, a 95 horsepower Cub can climb higher than that, but without oxygen, the safe operation ceiling for the plane is 12,000 feet. We flew around Granite Peak, not over it. The pilot I knew that had flown for Talkeetna Air Service flew with an oxygen mask up at 18,000 feet around Denali on multiple occasions, though they flew at lower elevations and a greater distance from the mountain when flying tourists. He flew a Cessna 180 and also a DeHavilland Beaver during his time in Alaska. The Cessna could carry three paying passengers and the Beaver could carry five. His stories of his Alaska adventures inspired me to think, for a time, that being a mountain pilot was the career I would pursue.

As it turned out, I never became a commercial pilot. I flew light airplanes as a hobby for several years, but that hobby isn’t the most compatible with the salary earned by a minister and flying is a skill that must be exercised regularly for safety. We decided to sell our partnership in an airplane and invest the money in our family before our children became teens. I haven’t regretted the decision. I was able to maintain the level of safety I desired when I was flying and I chose to stop flying as a pilot when I felt I could no longer afford to do so safely. I have, however, kept the old dream of flying around Denali alive over all of these decades.

Taking a tour around Denali presents some challenges for us. First of all, one has to get to Alaska, which we have not yet done, but may do so in the next few years. Secondly, it isn’t inexpensive to book a trip. Flights with Talkeetna Air Taxi cost upwards of $300 per person, with the deluxe flight including a ski landing on a glacier costing around $600. And the biggest challenge with all mountain flying is the weather. Not every day provides an opportunity to see the mountain. There are plenty of people who have traveled to Alaska and not seen Denali because of clouds.

In my imagination, however, I can give myself time to wait for the weather. There is a lot to see on the ground. Talkeetna isn’t a big town. There might be a thousand residents and it is not officially incorporated. That hasn’t kept the residents from electing a mayor, however. In 1997, Stubbs the cat was selected as Mayor and although Stubbs is no longer alive, the town has continued with the tradition. For a while they had co-mayors, both cats, one named Denali and the other Aurora. Denali is no longer living, but I think Aurora is still the mayor of the town. I’d hang out around Nagley’s store or West Rib Pub & Grill just to get a look at the cat. I like cats, but they don’t always like me. Not long ago, when we took a trip on a sailing vessel, the ship’s cat seemed perfectly friendly and I though it was enjoying my petting until it gave the back of my hand a bat with its claws and drew blood. I don’t seem to be very good at reading the temperament of cats, but as long as my trip to Alaska is a fantasy, I can imagine that the cat would like me and allow me to scratch its ears.

I am not able to predict the future, but there is still a pretty good chance that one day I will have the opportunity to take a ride in a small airplane around Denali. Chances are it will be in a bigger airplane than the Cubs of my youth. I think Talkeetna Air Taxi mostly flies DeHavilland Otters that have been retrofitted with turboprop engines these days. They can carry up to nine passengers with a single pilot. Paying the $600 for the deluxe flight doesn’t guarantee a seat next to the pilot in the front where you can take pictures out of the windshield, but every seat is a window seat and there is a lot to see. And while I wait to see what might happen, I still can go flying on YouTube and in my imagination.

Flights of fancy can be wonderful all by themselves.

There is a truck in our neighborhood with a bumper sticker that says, “Bigfoot doesn’t believe in you, either.” Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is a large, hairy creature said to inhabit forests in our region. It is a matter of who you consult whether or not Bigfoot is a living animal. Most scientists dismiss the evidence provided by Bigfoot enthusiasts as misidentification or hoax. However, there is a definite subculture around Bigfoot. Bigfoot memorabilia are sold in shops and tourist venues around the area. There are wooden carvings of the creature in many locations, including right on main street in Blaine in front of the Amoco station. There is a steel cutout made to resemble the figure strolling in the woods at a campground where we like to stay in the mountains of western Montana.

People have been telling Bigfoot stories, often without always using the names Bigfoot or Sasquatch, for a long time in a lot of different places. Some indigenous cultures feature wild man stories about a creature that walks upright and lives in the forests and is rarely seen by humans.

We in the Pacific Northwest, however, want to stake our claim on our own unique stories of Bigfoot. We also want to keep the profits from Bigfoot t shirts, caps, bumper stickers, cardboard cutouts, figurines, and other items to ourselves. Whether or not Bigfoot is a mythological creature, we enjoy having a few good stories to tell to visitors when they come to our area.

For those who are not familiar with our Bigfoot, it is important for us to distinguish Bigfoot from some other legendary creatures that appear in different places:
Bigfoot is not Yeti, the Abominable Snowman who lives in the snow covered mountains of Tibet and Nepal.
Bigfoot is not Yowie, who lives in Australia where everyone knows the animals are unique. You won’t find any Tasmanian Devils in Washington, either.
And despite recent news stories about Bigfoot sightings in South Carolina, we are quite sure that there is no Bigfoot in the southeast. A bit of jealousy and perhaps some wishful thinking have convinced Carolinians that the Skunk Apes they have spotted are Bigfoot. Bigfoot prefers the Pacific Northwest, especially Washington and British Columbia.

Dedicated Bigfoot Fans acknowledge that the original range of the creature may have been much bigger than the Northwest. In California, on the Tule River Indian Reservation, there are petroglyphs that depict a family of Bigfoot. According to local legend, Big Foot is good for humans because he eats animals that might harm people. However, folks in California also warn their children not to go near rivers because they might encounter the creature.

Sasquatch, the local name for Big Foot comes from Hale’emeylem, one of the Coast Salish languages of British Columbia spoken from Vancouver Island and up the Fraser River on the mainland. The Hale’emeylem word for the creature is sasq’ets, which has been anglicized to become Sasquatch.

Members of the Lummi nation, which is the Coast Salish tribe closest to our home and on whose traditional ancestral lands we live, tell stories of Ts’emekwes, their word for Bigfoot. Some of the stories are specific about the creatures’ diet and activities. In the Lummi stories, the creature is not intentionally frightening or dangerous to humans, but they only go out at night. Stories of Ts’emekwes are sometimes told as a caution to children that they should stay inside, safe in their beds, at night.

In the 1840s, Reverend Eliana Walker, a Protestant missionary, recorded stories of Bigfoot told by Spokane Indians in Eastern Washington. Those stories included tales of Bigfoot stealing salmon from the nets of fishermen.

There was a television show on the Discovery channel, produced in 2021. The series follows a team of five men who explore Portlock, Alaska, which experienced a sudden decrease in population in the 1940’s. The series is titled “Alaskan Killer Bigfoot.” Although the description of the appearance of the creature is similar to indigenous stories, most native stories depict a safer and less violent Bigfoot.

I personally have never seen Bigfoot, although I am persuaded that the Spokane may have something about Bigfoot stealing fish. That might explain my lack of skill or luck as a fisherman. Perhaps I haven’t done enough hiking in the mountains around here. Perhaps because I’m a big fan of making a lot of noise and even using bear bells when hiking because I have no intention of catching a grizzly by surprise. I think it is likely that Bigfoot, being shy of humans, would be warned by the noise I make and stay out of sight whenever I’m hiking in the forest.

When we do hike in the forests around here, we are aware of how different they are from the forests west of the Cascade Mountains. The other places we have lived have been much dryer. The forests here are classified as temperate rain forests due to the amount of precipitation and the lush undergrowth of ferns and mosses. In addition, the forests here on the coast are filled with trees that are much larger than the ones in the Black Hills of South Dakota or the Rocky Mountains of Idaho and Montana. If Bigfoot likes the weather around here, he might not be as comfortable in places that have less moisture and where the temperatures go below zero on a regular basis.

Now that we’ve settled here in our home in the Pacific Northwest and gotten good rain gear so that we are comfortable walking in wet weather, we’ll continue to keep our eyes open for possible sightings of Bigfoot. Sometimes, when it is raining hard and we are walking, I tend to look down at the ground a lot. I wear glasses and water spots on the lenses make navigation a challenge. By looking down, I can sometimes avoid some of the raindrops getting on my glasses. That posture and keeping my eyes on the ground might make me more likely to see the tracks of Bigfoot, who by the name must leave gigantic prints behind.

If I see one, I’ll be sure to report it in my journal.

We stopped to talk with a neighbor yesterday and our brief conversation ranged from checking in to see how each other are doing to home repair projects to gardening to weather. A lot of conversations get around to the weather sooner or later. Our neighbor has lived in this area for all of his life. We know his mother and grandparents who also live in this area. His insights about growing plants are helpful to us as we are still learning about the climate and plants of this area. We are newcomers and appreciate what the long time residents have to share. Our neighbor told us that the weather this year has been very unusual.

I don’t know how often I’ve heard people say that the weather this year is unusual. It is a lot. I remember going to the cafe in North Dakota and hearing the locals tell me “the weather isn’t usually like this around here.” When we moved to Idaho, long time residents told us “It never gets that cold around here,” and “It never gets that hot around here,” in the same year.

One thing that you can say about the weather, no matter where you are, is that it can surprise people. It makes me wonder what my grandchildren think of me when I tell them of below zero temperatures, driving blizzards, and other weather phenomena that I remember. After all, I’m reporting to them the weather of a different time and a different place. If they are as used to people saying that the current weather is unusual it might make sense to them that the weather is always unusual and the conditions I report belong to a different time all together.

It is, however, a bit reassuring to me that locals are experiencing this year as a bit unusual. It seemed to me that it took summer a long time to get going this year. Some of our garden plants were slow to develop. Our tomatoes grew tall and produced fruit, but some of the plants never bushed out and most of them looked sickly all summer long. The bulbs came up early in the spring and so we were quick to start putting out annuals, but they were slow to get going. On the other hand, we’ve had lots of blossoms well into the fall. Although the leaves have fallen from the trees, our geraniums are still blooming vividly. We are well into November and aren’t used to having so many blossoms in our yard. We haven’t had our first real frost yet even though we’ve picked all of the green tomatoes and are ready to take out the plants. The sunflowers have dried out and it is time to remove the plants, but other plants are still green. It seems like the plants are a bit confused about the weather as well.

It has been an interesting year of watching the bees as well. I’ve got my hives all set for winter. I’ve got feeders in them, but the bees aren’t consuming much syrup yet. Whenever the sun comes out they go out and about gathering pollen and nectar. They hunker down and stay in the hive when it rains, but they seem more active this November than last year. I don’t have enough experience with the bees to know whether or not this is unusual for them.

I think part of what makes the plants and bees seem to be a bit confused by the weather is that I am a bit confused by it. November is the rainy season around here. I’ve lived so much of my life in places where November precipitation isn’t that heavy and when it comes it is as likely to fall as snow as rain. On the other hand, rainfall amounts have been much lighter than forecast lately. The forecast called for rain all day yesterday, but we didn’t get rain until after midnight. It was sunny in the afternoon. When I consulted the weather radar available on my phone it looked like we were a tiny pocket of cloudless skies in a large region of clouds and rainfall. I don’t know enough about weather to explain why the clouds were distributed in that particular pattern, but I can hear the rain falling on our kitchen skylights as I write this morning, so not all of the rain is missing us.

Actually the ground is quite wet around here. I don’t need to water the plants in our beds. They are getting enough rainfall. And, as I am beginning to learn, the grass that went dormant in late summer has begun to grow again. Adjusting to having to mow the lawn in November is a new thing to me and it continues to surprise me.

I suspect that I could find someone who is native to this area who would report that there is nothing unusual about mild temperatures and who remembers other years when the growing season was slow to start, but extended well into late fall.

Climate scientists report that the weather really is changing. Rising temperatures cause storms to be more intense. Warmer oceans lead to more evaporation. More moisture in the atmosphere results in increased rainfall in parts of the globe and record droughts in other parts. Although the overall trend is for increasing temperatures, local effects can be both warmer and colder than average. Climate related crises range from flooding in Myanmar to drought in East Africa.

The United Nations climate summit COP29 that opened yesterday in Baku, Azerbaijan, has not received as much news coverage here in the US as some previous climate summits. The recent presidential election seems to be dominating our news. There is, however, a lot at stake in those conversations. England’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said that climate change is a more pervasive and fundamental threat than terrorism.

Unusual weather, confused plants and bees, severe storms, and wildfire will likely dominate our conversations for the rest of my life. COP29 will not be the last United Nations Climate Change Conference. Hopefully, however, world leaders will rise to the threats that lie before us and discover new ways to work together to decrease the impact of humans on the climate.

Today is Veterans Day, a day to remember and offer thanks for those who have served in the armed forces. Unlike many other holidays, Veterans Day always lands on November 11, regardless of what day of the week it is. As a child I learned that the day found its origin in the armistice that ended World War I that took effect at 11 am on the 11th day of the 11th month. I played the trumpet and was called upon to play taps at a variety of different events in our community including Veterans Day and Memorial Day. I also played for graveside committal ceremonies. My first experiences of playing for funerals were the deaths of old men in our community who had served in World War I. They were of my grandfather’s generation and it was a tradition in our town for the old men to carry the colors at the Memorial Day Parade until they were too old to march straight. The Veteran’s Day ceremonies in our town were more muted than Memorial Day. We didn’t generally have a parade, but there was often a brief ceremony at the Legion Hall or in the High School gymnasium with a few speeches. Veterans often wore their uniforms for the occasion and it usually ended with the playing of taps. Being on deck for the final note of the ceremony meant that I had to pay attention to the whole thing, but it also usually meant that I had a special place to stand or sit.

My father was a veteran, having served in the Army Air Corps as an instructor pilot and service pilot during the Second World War. He did not serve overseas, spending his entire term of service based in the California Desert where bomber pilots were trained. He was a recipient of the Purple Heart, having been injured when he bailed from an airplane that experienced a catastrophic engine failure while flying a plane that had served in the Pacific theater to a storage facility in Arizona. Father wasn’t one for wearing his uniform, however. He went to Veterans Day programs in his work clothes and sat in the crowd. I never saw him wear his purple heart or the pin showing membership in the caterpillar club - the sign his life was saved by a silk parachute.

Now that I am approaching the age of those World War I veterans when I was a child and our daughter is the wife of an Air Force Master Sergeant, I understand that service and sacrifice are marks not only of the members of the armed forces, but also of their families. Our son in law was recently assigned to overseas duty at a base where his family could not follow him. It was a temporary deployment lasting six months, but six months of having his daddy gone is a long time for our five year old grandson. Although they were able to speak regularly over an Internet connection with video, it was a challenging time for our daughter to have to care for house and child while her husband was overseas. As we spoke to them over Skype yesterday our family celebration of Veterans Day included thanksgiving that he is now back at home and the family is together.

Veterans Day falls on the Feast of Saint Martin in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church and in protestant denominations that honor traditional saints’ days such as the Lutheran and Anglican Churches. Due to variations in historic calendars, Eastern Orthodox communions celebrate the Feast of Saint Martin on November 12. Saint Martin of Tours was a 4th century saint known for generosity. One legend about him tells that he cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar, saving the man from the cold.

A variety of traditions are associated with the Feast of Saint Martin, also known as Martinmas. It is traditional to serve goose or beef for a feast at which the first wine of the season is served. In Germany, children make lanterns that are carried in processions.

Martinmas is also a traditional day for making predictions about the length of the winter. Here is my forecast: It is going to rain today. I am basing that prediction on the fact that it is currently raining and I can hear the drops on the skylights in our kitchen as I write. Since I live on the coast where the weather is mild, I also predict that we won’t have much snow this winter where I live. However, the snow in the North Cascades is already deeper than at this time in several recent years and the combination of snow and rain means that the rivers in our region will reach flood stage in the week to come. Having grown up on the east slope of the Rockies I think of spring as flood season, but here November is the month where flooding is most likely.

At our house, however, we have no particular plans to celebrate Martinmas. If we did, I think I might favor eating croissants. Although we generally associate croissants with France, St. Martin’s croissants are the tradition of Poznań in western Poland, where it is predicted that between 1.25 and 3 million St. Martin’s croissants will be consumed today. That’s about 250 tons of pastry, and the Polish croissants are not low calorie versions, either. Poznań’s croissants are topped with sugar and nuts and the pastry is filled with poppy seeds, nuts, raisins, almonds, sugar and butter. A single croissant can top 1,200 calories. I guess, however, that we probably can’t get the pastries here as St. Martin’s croissants have Protected Geographical Indication status. According to the European Union, only croissants baked in Poznań can carry that official name. It’s OK. We aren’t planning to cook a goose, either.

Our celebration will be muted, but we will remember to thank veterans and their families for their service and sacrifice. However celebrated, we have benefitted from the service and sacrifice of others. I might even get out my trumpet and sound taps later this morning. It is always good to remember those who have served and sacrificed.

As I retired, I became the librarian of our church. It sort of happened by default. I worked as Interim Minister of Faith Formation for two years at the end of my career. the position involved some general oversight of the church library. As the end of the interim approached the former church librarian died suddenly. When it occurred the library was in the process of transition to a digital catalogue and completing a new system of organization. One of the mistakes we made in setting up the system is that we started cataloguing books as an experiment, with limited access to the software and management of the website. We focused on getting books catalogued and not on overall management. So when the librarian died, I was the only one left who had the passwords and knowledge of the system. Although that issue has now been resolved, the easiest way to make the transition was for me to step in as church librarian.

I have enjoyed serving in this capacity and continue to do so. Although I have no formal training as a librarian, our son is a community librarian. He earned his Master of Library Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and served as a medical librarian and director of information services for a large hospital corporation before becoming a community librarian. He has coached me and continues to be a valued consultant as I seek to manage the small church library.

Libraries are often misunderstood by many people and church libraries often suffer from a lack of clarity about their mission and purpose. As a church librarian, I have encountered that lack of clarity multiple times. People think of the library as a room full of books and often believe that the library can be improved by having more books. When I became church librarian there were boxes and boxes of uncatalogued books. Many of them did not belong to the categories of the church collection. For example, our church library does not have a fiction section. But a lot of fiction books are donated to the church library. I soon discovered that for some of the members of the church, the church library was a place to get rid of books when they were downsizing or moving. In October we went on an eight-day trip and when we returned there were two additional boxes of books that had been left in the library.

Having boxes of books in addition to the shelves seems to attract more boxes of books, so with the advice and consent of the church’s Faith Formation Committee, I have sorted the books and set up a give away table in the church fellowship hall. There are no more boxes of unsorted books in the church library. Some of the donated books have been catalogued and shelved. In order to do that, other books that previously were a part of the collection needed to become part of the giveaway. The process of giving away books has its formal start today and we have two weeks to see how many books can find new homes before the remainder of the excess books are donated to various places that can accept them.

I have learned from our son that circulating libraries are constantly in the process of disposing of books. At his library, roughly 10% of the total collection is replaced with new volumes every year. If the library does not continue to dispose of books that do not circulate it would soon become overrun with books that no one would read. The bigger the library, the more books need to move on to other homes. It is a constant process of acquisition and disposal.

Many people, however, do not understand this process. They see a library as a static collection. This is particularly true of church libraries. Having been through our church library, I know that there are no rare or collectable books in the collection. There are a few very old books, primarily old Bibles, but no volume in the collection is irreplaceable. What we had and continue to have are books that are dated and that no one has checked out of the library for a long time - perhaps they have never circulated since coming to the church library.

My vision is that the church collection might become a service to its members. That means that the books are in circulation. The church library currently has space for roughly 1,500 books. My goal is to grow the collection to about 2,000 volumes, with 500 volumes in circulation at any given time. That will take time as we need to both grow the collection and expand circulation at the same time. Promoting use of the library is probably more important than expanding the collection at present. We need to be very careful and strategic in our acquisitions so that we gain books that people want to take home and read.

Now that we have gotten through the backlog of donated books, the job of shelving and organizing books is not particularly large. If we averaged half of the collection being checked out once each year, shelving returned books would take less than a half hour a week. Going forward, I will continue to focus on identifying books that do not circulate and finding new homes for them, while paying attention to what does circulate and slowly growing our collection in response to the interests of the congregation. Right now our most circulated books are about grief, death, and loss. Also popular are books about justice. Books on those topics currently are less than a quarter of our collection.

In the meantime devotional books and books about spirituality continue to arrive by donations. Those books often simply occupy shelf space and do not circulate. It appears that members tend to purchase those types of books and use the library as a way to dispose of the ones they no longer want to own. They rarely turn to the library as a source of devotional reading.

I’m aware that I am aging and that my term as church librarian will be brief. Others will take over in the future. They will have different visions and different goals. The role of the library will shift. For this brief time, however, I am trying to be a wise steward of the church’s resources and grow the library’s role of serving our community.

Pundits will be analyzing the 2024 US Presidential election for decades and I am not a political expert. Nonetheless, the election has been on my mind. Here are a few random observations I offer to those who are interested.

Truth exists. Facts are facts. Speaking a lie, even repeating it over and over again does not make the lie into a truth. Even though the candidate who won the election repeated it over and over, it remains true that the people of Springfield, Ohio, are not eating domestic pets. It can be independently verified from multiple sources. Immigrants come to the United States for a wide variety of reasons. Emptying prisons to export criminals is not one of them. There was a time when England exported criminals to the United States, but the Revolutionary War put an end to the practice in the US. England continued to export prisoners to Australia for years afterward. In a world with a record number of people and a record number of refugees, human migration will continue whether or not there is anti-immigration rhetoric. Mass deportations can be a factor in human migration, but it won’t change the fact that humans have always moved around the globe and will continue to do so as long as there are people on this planet. Increasing the rate of extraction and consumption of fossil fuels will not alter the reality that there is a limited supply of these materials and it will increase the rate of global climate change. Power is not the same as truth and there will always be a need for persons of integrity to speak truth to power.

Change is inevitable. No amount of promising a return to the past will stop change from occurring. Change can be painful. It can cause loss and grief. It can spawn nostalgia and longing. But change will occur whether or not people want change. In general, those who accept change and adapt are more successful and happier than those who resist and attempt to stop change. Using the word “again” in a campaign slogan may be a successful strategy in the short term, but it does not empower anyone to stop change. The flow of history will not be reversed. We will not return to some imagined and generally mis-remembered past.

Media is not what it used to be. Information and misinformation travel in new ways in each generation. News is no longer the province of three major television networks. Print newspapers are not the leading source of information. Misinformation has always existed in many different media and rapidly evolving social media systems have been especially effective at transmitting misinformation. Governments have a role in regulating the distribution of misinformation, but they are also capable of distributing propaganda. I believe that some political strategists failed to understand the dynamics of changing media such as the impact of podcasts in spreading misinformation. The strategies of truth telling need to be constantly examined in a rapidly changing world.

People are economy. Labor is a source of generating wealth. The economic success of a business and of a country is based on people. Counting only currency as wealth is a failure to understand economy. Proposed mass deportations will have a significant economic impact and that impact will radiate throughout the economy. Deporting service workers diminishes the number of construction jobs. Fewer people can result in more unemployment. The failure to understand and take account of the impact of people on the economy will not result in economic success. It may increase the wealth of those who are already wealthy, but it will not improve the economy of everyday citizens. Fewer janitors and cleaners drives up the price of healthcare. And healthcare is directly related to the lack of financial stability of middle and lower class citizens.

People are security. Focusing solely on technology and equipment may make military contractors more wealthy, but it is the strength, commitment, and sacrifice of the people who serve in the military that provide for the security of a nation. The wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan offered lessons in the simple fact that superior technology is not the only factor in war. The failure to learn those lessons decreases security for all people. Israel has the power to dominate its region and cause incredible suffering of those it deems to be enemies. But all of the military technology possessed by Israel is not increasing the security of its people. Learning to live with its neighbors will be required of Israel no matter how many Palestinians are killed.

Rhetoric is not reality. Refer to my first observation above.

Yellowstone is a fantasy television series. It is not the story of the part of Montana where I grew up and where our family owned property for generations before finally selling in the spring of 2023. In the television series, the renegade governor is a member of a multi-generational ranching family seeking to protect their ranch from developers. In real-life Montana the Governor is an outsider who happens to own several vacation properties, but didn’t even live in the state full time before he was elected. That is also true of the senator elect who did not grow up in Montana and who used money raised outside the state to defeat a true Montana rancher.

The 2024 Presidential election is not the end of American democracy. The rise of autocratic leadership is alarming and Project 2025 will lead to increased suffering for many in order to provide increased profit for very few, but it is part of a political cycle and not the end of the story. Autocrats do not last forever. Hitler was in power for just over eight years before his power was lost and he died by suicide. Despite what has been said, Trump is not Hitler and his story will not be the same. Fascists rise from time to time and injustice can prevail short term and cause great suffering, but it is not the whole story. American politics still has room for genuine public servants of integrity who are not motivated by the lust for power or the greed of a select minority.

Abraham Lincoln got it right in the Gettysburg Address: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us . . . that his nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

May his words continue to inspire new generations of leaders.

Back in 2017 around the time of the Presidential inauguration, a couple of my Lakota friends gently chided me for my predictions of doom and gloom from the incoming administration. “We don’t like him either, but when have we liked the President? When your people have faced boarding schools and genocide, you learn to think in terms of survival, not whether or not you like someone in the government.” They did, of course, have a point. I am an old, white, heterosexual, cisgender man. I’m even a bit overweight. Although I don’t wear makeup and I don’t comb my hair over my balding pate, I look quite a bit like the person elected president. What my friends were suggesting was that I take a breath, assess dangers realistically and learn to think of the long term. “You’re going to survive this,” they said to me.

These days I’ve been thinking, “I survived one term, but now I have to face another and this time around it will be even more extreme.” I have to remind myself of the advice of my friends. I’m not among the many people who have been threatened with the loss of basic human rights. I’m not one of those who have been directly threatened with physical violence, including the use of the military against private citizens. At least, for now, I’ve not been called “the enemy within.”

I am, however, reminded of the post-World War II confessional words written by German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller. The translation of his speech that is displayed in United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reads as follows:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—      Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—      Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—      Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are longer versions of the quote. Niemöller’s original speech names communists, not socialists, mentions those who were sick - the so-called incurables, and adds more information including a dramatically low number for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The quote has sometimes met with criticism because of the translations used and because Niemöller himself was an early supporter of the Nazis. Still, reading his words resonate with me. The time may come for me to speak out.

Making an honest assessment of my own personal risk and taking the long game means that while I may not face direct threats to my physical safety, I may, nonetheless, be called to speak out. I pray that I will have the courage to sit with my friends in their fear. stand up with them when courage is demanded, and speak out when others threaten them.

Some of my friends have already begun to speak out in support of others. I’m pretty much staying away from social media this week in order to protect my mental health, but several of my friends have posted and reposted memes aimed at suicide prevention in the light of the direct verbal assaults against transgender and nonbinary persons by political leaders. NPR reported the alarming increase in suicide attempts of trans teens after states passed anti transgender laws. The Trevor Project cited an increase in suicide attempts of 36% - 40%, saying that the total increase in suicide attempts among all ages could be as much as 72% in the light of these laws.

I am trained in ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training). I have invested many years of my life working with others for suicide prevention. One of the things that I have said several times when working with persons with suicidal ideation is “Even big problems are temporary.” But those problems are only temporary if suicide is prevented. Once a person dies by suicide, the problems cannot be solved. The President-elect of our country has openly lied about schools and transgender youth. The time may be for me to speak out.

Of course the threat is not just to those specifically named in speeches and restrictive laws. Taking the rhetoric and proposed policies of the incoming administration seriously demands that we seek a long game in terms of environmental protection. It is almost assured that increasing subsidies for oil and gas exploration will have a direct impact on the people of the world. Small increases in average temperatures have a big impact on heat extremes. Hotter and longer heatwaves will result in more deaths. More heat means more evaporation and more evaporation results in extreme rainfall. That means more deadly flooding and more victims. Droughts will be longer and more severe. Drought has already displaced 1.2 million people in Somalia alone. Climate change makes severe droughts at least 100 times more likely. Climate change is making the weather conditions needed for wildfires to spread. Our neighbor to the north, Canada continues to experience record-setting wildfire seasons, which probably can no longer be called “seasons” because the fires burn year round now. The current wildfire crisis in California will have lasting health effects on millions of children. US governmental policies have a direct effect on the quality of life for millions around the globe. The time may be now for me to speak out.

The time to speak out, however, is not the occasion for panic. As my Lakota friends continue to remind me, I need to learn to look at the long game - to think in terms of many generations instead of just my own life span. Several people have sent me a quote attributed to Avis Red Bear:

“Now be brave and fight for what you love. The elders say that one of Crazy Horse’s war cries was, “Maka ki ecela tehani yanke lo!” Only the Earth lasts forever.
 
Stronghearts to the front.”

May our hearts be strong and our voices not fail us as we live in these historic times.

I want to write about young men in the United States, but I am no longer young and I am well aware that my experience is of another time. The culture of this country has shifted dramatically. Still, I will start by sharing a bit of my experience.

I was an academic under achiever in high school. It isn’t that I lacked intelligence, but I did lack maturity. I had poor study skills and I didn’t push myself as hard as was possible. I dates a bit, but I was from a small town and there was no real field to play. Couples formed in seventh or eighth grade and there tended to be little shifting. Occasionally a couple would break up and there might be some shifting. I dated a bit, mostly with a young woman that I had known all through school. She was a member of our church and was a very nice person and she treated me kindly, but there was no particular spark and I never sensed that relationship as being a part of my future. Mostly, I wanted to get out of the small town where I lived. I wanted to see more, learn more, do more, but I didn’t know how to do that.

What happened to me is that our church gave me the opportunity to meet other youth. Through summer camps, youth rallies, and other events, I met young people from other towns and formed new relationships. I gained a bit of skill in social situations that I had not previously enjoyed. And during my junior year of high school I noticed someone I had met a few years earlier in a new way. We talked. There was a spark, or more accurately a lot of sparks. I was smitten. She was from the biggest city in our state. And she was interested in me. From the standards of my high school, we weren’t a typical match. She was taller than I. And she was older than I. In my school, girls tended to date boys their own age or older. It wasn’t uncommon for there to be a couple where the girl was younger, but one where the girl was older didn’t seem to happen in our high school.

Being so interested in someone a bit older turned out to be good for me. I worked hard to behave maturely because I wanted to impress her and practice is good for a young man. She was academically successful and she became the motivation I needed to work hard. She encouraged me to apply to an early admissions program at the college she was going to attend. If I were accepted, we would be in the same class. I took the challenge and was successful.

In college it became immediately clear to me that I was in over my head. I had piles of books that I not only needed to read, but I needed to understand and recall their information. I had not gained good study skills and I really needed them. She was patient with me, however. She taught me how to study. And she gave me a reason to work very hard.

We married after our third year of college. We didn’t have any financial resources except the backing of our parents. But by then we both had good grades, a few scholarships, and plans to keep going with our education. It was a different time.

These days, marriage is a capstone event for most couples. It is something that is done when you are old enough, established enough, and financially successful enough. We didn’t wait until we were established and we didn’t wait until we had achieved financial stability. We traded janitorial services for the rent in our tiny apartment for the first year of our marriage. In addition, I was lucky to find part time work in addition to our schoolwork. We shared the same manual typewriter and the room for studying was also our bedroom. Our bed was a hide-a-bed sofa in the living room. We had a small kitchen, a bathroom, and an everything else room. We had to fold up the bed to get by the desk to get out of the door.

In my case, the important thing is that we didn’t wait. Our wedding was one week after my 20th birthday. In time a son was born to us and we adopted a daughter. Both came into our lives before we had the down payment to begin purchasing our own home. We had almost no savings.

My story is very different from that of most young men in our society today. Throughout my career the average age of first marriage has gone up and up. Marriage is now something that is undertaken after couples have achieved a variety of other goals. For many couples it occurs after multiple relationships. And increasingly, for many young men it isn’t happening at all. Advancing the age of first marriage is only part of the statistic. As colleges began to open up additional opportunities for female scholars, the simple fact that women are often more mature than their male peers prompted them to succeed academically. The Covid Pandemic accelerated an educational gap that was already widening. Between 2010 and 2021, male enrollment in colleges and universities dropped by 17% in the US while female enrollment increased by 13%. By April of this year, women comprised 58% of college students, up from 56% six years earlier.

Add in to the education gap the corrosive effect of increased screen time on relationships and the fact that young men are more likely to spend significantly greater time with their devices than young women and conditions exist for increasing social gaps. In almost every country in the world, the age of marriage and of becoming parents is getting older and older. While young women seem to thrive academically and professionally by delaying marriage, young men seem to struggle. Young men are more likely to be economically disadvantaged and socially isolated. Watching a screen is a poor substitute for a relationship with a living person.

Sociologists are just beginning to accumulate data on this phenomenon but it is well documented that it is a factor in declining birth rates. The US is at an all time low in birth rates. And that means that fewer young men are given the gift and challenge of parenting. Becoming a father is another thing that enabled me to grow up and face the challenges of life. But that is a topic for another journal entry.

The challenges facing young men in our society today is bigger than a thousand words. And they are challenges for all of society. There is much more to be learned and much more to come.

I love the musical Fiddler on the Roof. I’ve even fantasized about playing the role of Tevye. Of course I am no actor and I’m not much of a singer, either. I had a couple of minor parts in high school plays. I sang a solo at a funeral once. But I’m not a soloist. I’m not the kind of person who would be selected to play the lead in a musical.

It is all right, however, because the play is about a man whose fantasies don’t become realities, either. The play begins with Tevye praying, "Oh, Lord, you made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, it's no shame to be poor. But it's no great honor either! So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?” And then he sings about how he imagines it would be to be a rich man. He wouldn’t have to work hard. He’d build a big house with dozens of rooms and long staircases. He’d fill his yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks all squawking as noisily as they can. Of course Tevye doesn’t become a rich man. His wife never gets to scream at servants day and night and she never gets a proper double chin. Important men never come to fawn on him and ask his advice. He never gets the time to discuss the holy books with the learned men several hours every day. At the end of the play, Tevye and Golde not only are not rich, they are also homeless, heading out to find a new place to live.

I’ve occasionally indulged in fantasies of wealth. Mine haven’t been quite like Tevye’s. I never really wanted to not work. I had a job that I love and I imagined that I would continue to serve even if I had enough money to purchase a new car and pay off the mortgage and take trips around the world. Sometimes I will see a piece of land for sale and I’ll comment to whoever might be listening that if I were wealthy I would buy it just to keep it from being developed. Or perhaps I would turn it into a park and donate it to the city or county.

Just like the fantasy of singing the lead in a musical, I really don’t have what it takes to become a rich person. I don’t want to do what it takes to become rich. I haven’t shown a propensity for accumulation of wealth. I’ve spent money on frivolous things. I’ve given away money without any possibility of return.

Mind you, by world standards, I am wealthy. I have a very comfortable place to live while over 28,000 people experience homelessness in the state where I live. I have enjoyed food security all of my life while 7.2 million children in our country are unsure of where their next meal will come from. Our pantry and freezer are full. I’m not sure how long we could go with the food we have on hand, but we’d have plenty of meals before we really had to go to the grocery store. And yet, I’ll probably go grocery shopping today or tomorrow to stock up on fresh food and a few other items and I have plenty of money in my account to shop for the food I need. We have not just one, but two reliable vehicles that are road worthy with good tires ready to go where we want to go. I am able to donate to my church and to other causes that are important to me.

And I am rich in love. In Fiddler on the Roof, Golde and Tevye finally come to saying that they love each other after 25 years. The song, “Do You Love Me?” is sung after Tevye announces that he is giving his permission for their daughter to marry a very poor man who has nothing. To convince his wife he says, "He's a good man, Golde. I like him. And what's more important, Hodel likes him. Hodel loves him. So what can we do? It's a new world... A new world. Love. Golde..."

But I have known that I love my wife for more than 50 years and we are still as much in love as we were when we began. It hasn’t always been easy. I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve known forgiveness and I’ve never doubted that I am loved. When it came time for our children to marry, I didn’t question the genuineness of their love and we have watched that love grow and blossom.

I am rich in grandchildren. I used to occasionally indulge in fantasy about being a grandfather, but I was not able to imagine how truly wonderful it is to have time to read stories, teach lessons, ride bikes, and explore the world with grandchildren. And I get to share that joy with the best grandmother in the world.

I am no politician. I have allowed myself to fantasize that my preferred candidates would win elections each time I have voted. More often than not, my fantasies have not come true. Instead of winning elections, I have seen political leaders who are genuinely called to public service discover new avenues of serving. The amazing work of the Carter Center for world peace, providing treatment for disease, working for mental health, and building hope in communities is just one example.

This morning the political picture in our country is not what I had hoped to see. I find some comfort in my Christian faith, knowing that Jesus stood up to empire as he ministered with marginalized people. Service in Jesus’ name is not about winning or even about changing the dynamics of wealth and power. Jesus often quoted Isaiah, the prophet who stood up to wealth and power and called the faithful to turn away from idolatry and toward God.

I indulge in fantasy, but I live in reality. And in reality there is much work to be done for justice and peace. The struggle continues.

The day has come, although election day feels different to me than it used to. Like millions of citizens of the United States, I have already cast my ballot. I live in a state where no one “goes to the polls” to vote. We have a universal vote by mail system. Registered voters receive their ballots in the mail. They are marked at home and returned by mail or by being dropped into official drop boxes located throughout the state. Local clerks of court certify the ballots using a system of comparing the signatures on voting registration cards with the signatures on the affidavits on the envelopes into which ballots are placed by voters.

I confess that I am old enough to miss the days when we voted by going in person to a local polling station, standing in line with our neighbors, receiving our ballots from volunteers who checked our names and addresses against the registration lists, marking our ballots in booths and placing them in secure ballot boxes before leaving the neighborhood voting station. However, I am convinced that our voting system is trustworthy. Over and over the claims of voter fraud have been investigated and found to be without merit. I am not saying that there is no voter fraud whatsoever, but it certainly is not as widespread as some pundits claim. Each time candidates file cases in court over voter fraud, they have been found to be baseless. I know many faithful citizens who have worked diligently to insure secure elections and I trust the integrity of the people we have elected to protect the right to vote.

Being old, however, there are things about the past that I miss. I miss the days when the airwaves were considered to be public property and broadcast licenses carried an obligation to present multiple sides to all issues, when journalistic integrity required a discipline of examining bias and eliminating it as much as possible. We have paid a high price for the deregulation of media that allows a few wealthy individuals to control the information received by millions of citizens. I miss the days when it seemed like an individual donation to a candidate’s campaign could make a difference.

In 1857, the United States Supreme Court upheld slavery in the United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. The decision is considered by many legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court and was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens of the United States. One of the lasting legacies of the Dred Scott decision and its subsequent overturning is the lesson that the Supreme Court can make mistakes with disastrous consequences and that when that occurs decisive action must be taken to overturn those mistakes.

In my opinion, the 2010 decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case titled Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission is an example of another time when a ruling by the court has rendered injustice that must be challenged and hopefully will one day be overturned. The ruling that corporations have the free speech rights of individuals, that campaign finance laws cannot be used to limit the flow of cash into elections from extremely wealthy corporations and individuals, and that sources of money in campaigns can be hidden has unleashed a torrent of money into the system that has had disastrous consequences.

There is no doubt in my mind that the world’s most wealthy individual believes that he should have more power and influence in an election than any other citizen. The million dollar a day lotteries intended to influence voters are funded by cash that has been accumulated by someone who pays very little taxes and wants more tax cuts. The money he claims he has earned has come directly from government contracts. It is easy to see why he wants to keep the cash spigot to his companies flowing. It is less easy to see why his influence should be greater than any other citizen.

It is also clear that there is no amount of money that will satisfy his desire. There is no amount of power that will make him say, “enough.”

Most alarming and the source of much of my anxiety on this election day are the credible threats of violence coming from a candidate for the highest office in the land. The threats are rendered especially alarming because of the violence that was fomented following the last election that the candidate lost. This is a person who has never received the majority of the votes case. However, our electoral college system is the system we have and the way we have decided presidential elections in this country. Candidates have accepted that system and conceded victory to opponents who did not win the popular vote in many instances. Until the 2020 election we had enjoyed the peaceful transition of power from one candidate to another.

One of the prices of our deliberative court system however, is that it does not move quickly. It takes time to allow for the protection of the rights of all involved and the careful weighing of decisions. We find this election coming between the conviction of a candidate on 34 counts of cheating in the 2016 election and the sentencing portion of that trial. The prosecution of the abuses of January 6, 2021 has moved slowly and deliberately and although much credible evidence of wrongdoing has been made public, and many of the most violent attackers have been sentenced and incarcerated for their violation of the laws, the most visible prosecution continues to move slowly enough that the defendant might be placed in a position to halt the prosecution and even pardon himself of crimes.

Along with millions of others, I am watching the events of this day and of the weeks to come with high anxiety. I fear the threats of violence. I pray for peace. I recall the words of Pope John Paul II: “Peace for all of us comes from the justice of each of us.” Prayers for peace must always be accompanied by work for justice for all.

Certainly this election day will not be the end of our prayers, nor will it be the end of our work.

When I was growing up our family was friends with a family who owned and ran a guest ranch up the river from our place. Each summer they welcomed dudes, primarily from back east, who wanted to taste a bit of ranch life. They keep a small herd of horses that were well broken and gentle and maintained summer cabins with motel-like amenities, and often hired a few local teens to assist with cleaning, food preparation, serving, and working the stock. The guests didn’t really accomplish much ranch work. In fact the operation was run by two brothers one of whom focused on running the ranch, and another who focused on guests and services. Theirs was just one of several ranches that supplemented their income with guest services. Our town was not far from Yellowstone National Park and each summer we had a steady stream of people staying in our town who were heading to or from the park.

Things have changed in that place. I think there are still a couple of operational guest ranches in the valley, but most of the working ranches are now owned by people who don’t live on them, but who use them as private vacation properties. People who live in my home town still welcome guests, but many of them are part-time residents who own multiple homes.

Living in South Dakota taught me a lot more about welcoming guests. Rapid City, where we lived, grew quite a bit during the 25 years we lived there from just over 60,000 to over 75,000 people. The Black Hills, however, is in many ways a spread-out urban area with a total population of nearly 250,000. If you count people that way, it rivals the state’s largest city, Sioux Falls, on the other end of the state. But everyone in the Black Hills knows that the first full week of August, including weekends at both ends, is the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally with an average attendance of 500,000. You learn a lot about welcoming guests when you live in a place where the population doubles during a single week each summer. You learn to be a careful driver when half of the traffic is motorcycles.

I’m predicting that some of the things I learned about welcoming guests and patience with sudden influxes of traffic will come in handy a year and a half from now when the Pacific Northwest will host the men’s FIFA World Cup. Soccer is the world’s most popular sport and there will be 13 World Cup matches split between Seattle and Vancouver spread over a four-week span. It is part of a much larger tournament with 48 national teams playing in a total of 16 cities across the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Based on previous FIFA World Cup events, the host committee is estimating that 750,000 people will be coming to our area. World Cup matches draw crowds far larger than the capacity of the stadiums where the matches are played. People want to be part of the overall excitement of the globe’s most watched sporting event. Host event planners estimate that only about half of the people who will come to our area will succeed in securing tickets to sit in the stadiums during matches. The rest will come to be a part of the general excitement and to rub elbows with the fans who do have tickets.

Like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, when the fans come to town there will be too many to stay in any one city and the impact will be regional. And our little area is between the two big cities. We’re under 50 miles from the Vancouver stadium where the games will be held. I’m sure that the customs and border patrol people will ramp up staffing at the crossing and that all lanes will be open. Still, it is possible that the lines of tourists traveling back and forth across the border could stretch for miles and clog the streets of Blaine.

Of course, like the Sturgis Rally, local tourism officials are seeking to put on our best for the fans, hoping that some of them will want to return later to take a closer look at all that our area has to offer. And there is a lot that we have to offer with the Salish Sea, the mountains, and the wonderfully temperate weather.

We’ve had a few opportunities to practice for the influx of tourists and lines of people crossing the border. Last Summer the Toronto Blue Jays came to Seattle for a series with the Seattle Mariners the same weekend as Taylor Swift played two concerts there as well. There were so many people trying to cross at the border that some waited as long as 3 hours in lines of cars that stretched for miles.

Locals who have lived here longer than we have remember 2010 when Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics. Both Canada and the US opened extra lanes at the border and increased staffing to handle the large number of people who were staying on our side of the border and commuting to the Olympics. Like the World Cup, the Olympics draws crowds beyond those who hold event tickets.

Based on those experiences, event planners are hoping for an increase in bus services and perhaps a significant increase in cross-border Amtrak service. There also have been some improvements in advance screening of border crosses that could reduce delays at the border.

I’m thinking that there will be a few vendors with ice cream trucks and mobile espresso cafes who are already planning the perfect places to park their vehicles in order to take advantage of those waiting in line. I’m rooting for the entrepreneurial children who might find the right place for the perfect lemonade stand.

When we lived in South Dakota we learned to sometimes take part of our vacation during the Rally. It isn’t that we don’t like to welcome guests, but we aren’t much for lines and crowds. I can’t predict what the future holds, but I am considering a big trip for the summer of 2026. It might just be a good time to head to some place with fewer people.

The United States didn’t officially establish standardized time zones in law until the Standard Time Act of 1918. However, United States and Canadian railroads instituted standard time zones that are roughly the same as the time zones we observe today in 1883. Sir Stanford Fleming, a Canadian railway planner and engineer, outlined a plan for worldwide standard time in the late 1870s and in 1884 delegates from 27 countries met in Washington, D.C., and agreed to a basic system that is very similar to the one now in use.

I’ve read that there was significant resistance to the adoption of standard time. People thought of time as being a local phenomenon. When the sun reached its highest point in the sky it was noon. That was different in different places. The thought that the railroad company could tell them what time it was seemed wrong to many. In some places there were two clocks installed in public places, one showing the local time the other showing railroad time. After a while, however, the concept of local time faded and standard time became the way time is understood.

I’m old enough that I can remember before the Uniform Time Act established Daylight Savings Time in the United States as a regular observance. Prior to my time, Daylight Savings Time had been implemented during World War I and also during World War II to implement energy savings. It was called “War Time” by President Franklin Roosevelt. During the energy crisis, the year after I was married, Congress ordered year-round Daylight Savings Time, but public response to it was so negative that it was later repealed. It wasn’t until 2007 that the shifting to Daylight Savings Time on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November became standard. States can opt out of Daylight Savings Time by passing a state law. Hawaii and Arizona do not observe Daylight Savings Time.

I’ve lived most of my life in the Mountain Time Zone. We moved to Chicago, which is in the Central Time Zone for four years and we now have lived in the Western Time Zone for a little over four years. The rest of the time I’ve been a Mountain Time Zone person. There have been some quirks in all of that, however. In 1985 we moved from Hettinger, North Dakota to Boise, Idaho. Both places are in Mountain Time, but the sun rises and sets about 50 minutes later in Boise than in Hettinger. For the decade we lived in Idaho we got in the habit of staying up an hour later than was our usual when we lived in North Dakota and sleeping in an hour later in the morning. Since we moved in the summer, we simply adjusted our clocks to the late sunset. Then, in 1995, we moved from Boise to Rapid City, South Dakota, shifting our clocks back by the same amount. We started going to bed earlier and rising earlier.

While all of that was going on, we were shifting from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time each year. As far as I can remember, I only forgot to set our clocks once. It was when we lived in North Dakota before we had cell phones or clocks that adjusted automatically. We simply forgot about the time change. Being pastors and the shift occurring on a Sunday it might have been catastrophic, but the time we forgot was in the fall, so all we did was to arrive at our first service an hour early. We had a bit of extra time on our hands, but there was no major disruption or embarrassment on our part.

We used to have a few folks who forgot about the time change almost every year. In the spring they’d show up for church as the service was ending. I suppose that sometimes people realized their error and just stayed away from the service, but a few times they wandered into the church to discover that worship was ending, not beginning. At least they could get in on coffee hour.

There is a quirk in the federal law establishing Daylight Savings Time. States can choose to have standard time year round as is the case in Hawaii and Arizona, but they cannot enact year round Daylight Savings Time under current federal law. State legislatures have considered over 700 bills and resolutions to establish year-round daylight savings time as soon as federal law allows it. 21 states currently have laws in place to make that change permanent. In California the shift to year round Daylight Savings Time was authorized by voters. The Sunshine Protection Act that would have allowed states to choose year round Daylight Savings Time passed the US Senate by a unanimous vote in 2022, but it was never taken up in the House of Representatives and so at this time there is no end to the process of changing clocks twice a year. Under current law states can eliminate the change by simply selecting year round standard time, but so far, permanent Daylight Savings Time seems to be the most popular option. I guess that there are very few people in the states that have passed permanent Daylight Savings Time acts who remember how unpopular that idea was in 1974. Maybe we just like having a certain level of confusion about the time.

Being retired, I am much less a slave to the clock than once was the case. I don’t rise by an alarm very often these days. I do set an alarm if I have a morning appointment. I usually set an alarm for Sundays even though we don’t have to be at the church early these days. I find the switch to and from Daylight Savings Time to be a mild irritation, but it really isn’t a problem for me. Our antique clocks are both at the repair shop for cleaning and minor repairs, so I don’t have to set them. I set the clock in the microwave oven and the kitchen range before going to bed. And I’ll set the clocks in the car later this morning. Unlike previous cars, I don’t have to get out the owner’s manual to set them. They’ve made the process easier in newer cars and I’ve heard that there are now some that change automatically just like our cell phones and smart watches do.

I hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep. I know I’ll appreciate the extra hour of light in the morning. I like to ride my bike when I get up so I’ll appreciate the 7 am sunrise instead of having to wait until 8 to ride. Then again, it is November in the Pacific Northwest, which means that there will be plenty of days when it is raining at sunrise. I’ll adjust. I’ve been doing it all of my life.

I’ve been pondering yesterday’s journal entry since I posted it. I think I was a bit over dramatic. My life is not really an emotional roller coaster. At least it isn’t a series of wild emotional swings. Yes, I have grave concerns about the world. Yes, I grieve over injustices and the death of innocents. But I don’t really go around most of the time filled with deep sadness. I could have written an entire journal entry and more about things in this world that make me very happy.

So that is my plan for today’s entry.

Somehow, through God’s grace, I was able to marry my best friend the week after I turned 20. I know a lot of people who are intelligent and loving who have had to go through a lot more living and experiencing before finding their life’s partner. Some people never do find the right relationship. We’ve not only been married for more than 51 years, but we have been happy through it all. We worked for the same employer for 44 years. For 19 of those years we shared the same office. She is the best colleague I can imagine. We enjoyed raising children together and we enjoy being grandparents together. I cannot overstate the amount of joy that has come to me from that relationship. It brings a smile to my face to see her walk down the stairs or come into the house from outside. We never run out of things to talk about, and yet we have enjoyed deep moments of sharing silence together. It is one of the joys that could all by itself fill a lot of journal entries.

We have two children. They are each unique and wonderful. They are not the same. But they really like each other. As adults they keep in touch and collaborate on many fronts. Although they live on different sides of the country and have lived on different continents at times, they have used technology to remain in touch with each other. When they are together they truly enjoy their time. If there was a need to which I was not able to respond, I know that they would be there for each other. Each of them has given me joy at every stage of their lives. And the joy of knowing that they are friends is deeper than I can express.

I have always enjoyed walking. There have been some monumental hikes in my story. Since 2019, we have been disciplines about taking a walk every day. We’ve walked int he rain, in driving snowstorms, on hot and dry days, and on days with beautiful weather. We’ve walked around the neighborhood and we’ve walked around towns and cities that we are visiting for the first time. We’ve walked through the mountains and down the beach. I can’t describe the feeling, but there is a deep joy in just being able to walk. It makes me feel good to experience my muscles and my balance working together. I’ve had a couple of injuries over the years that have temporarily made walking a challenge. An Achilles injury once made it painful to walk, but with physical therapy I recovered and one day I realized I was walking without pain. These days as the years have passed I can get stiff from sitting too long. I have to stretch out after driving the car for a distance. Walking makes me feel better. Putting one foot ahead of the other is one of the great joys of life.

We have been well treated by the churches we have worked for and we have enough financial security in our retirement that we can go to the grocery store and buy whatever we need. We have a well-stocked pantry and a freezer that mean that we are able to stay home and make dinner without a trip to the store. We can go many days on the supplies we have on hand. Cooking gives me a great deal of pleasure and having all of the ingredients I need is a joy. There have been a few situations in my life where I was uncertain about a particular meal, but for the most part I have not had to wonder where my next meal was coming from. Good nutrition is a joy beyond words.

Before we had children, I commented to my wife that I thought that I would enjoy being a grandfather some day. I was right. There is so much delight in each of our grandchildren that I feel like a rich person all the time. Who could ask for anything more? And since we have retired I have been able to move close to four of our five grandchildren. The youngest of our grandchildren I have been able to see multiple times nearly every week of his life. The grandson who lives across the country from us is available by FaceTime and Skype whenever I want to check in with him. When we are able to be together in person we can pick up right where we left off. And our children have been incredibly generous with giving us time with our grandchildren. We have the right safety seats in our car to be able to give them rides whenever we are needed. We know our way around their schools and we know their teachers. I really do enjoy being a grandpa and hearing a young voice call me Papa melts my heart every time.

I have been blessed with friendships that have endured over time. I have lifelong friends from each stage of my life’s journey. I have colleagues from seminary with whom I feel close even though we have lived and served on different continents. I have friends from every congregation that we have served. There are a lot of people with whom I can let down my hair. I’m nearly bald, so it isn’t a dramatic event, but there is deep joy in being comfortable with friends.

What is more, I have a list of things that make me happy that could fill dozens of journal entries. Just thinking about those things makes me happy.

A month or so ago, I purchased some large bags of candy at Costco. I stored them until yesterday when I filled two large bowls. After a light supper with our family, I stood on our front porch for a couple of hours and gave the candy to the children who came up our walk. I saw tiny ballerinas and unicorns, firefighters and dinosaurs. There were astronauts and the couple from the movie Beetlejuice. I saw a tax collector and an axolotl, a cow, and several Harry Potter characters. Most of the cast of the Wizard of Oz showed up together. There was Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and even the Wicked Witch of the West. But they didn’t have Toto with them. It was a good thing because I didn’t think to get any dog treats for the evening. Just as I ran out of candy to give away my grandchildren and their friends returned with bags of candy they had collected. They sorted through their treasures and refilled my bowl. There were a few treats left when the stream of visitors became a trickle and then stopped entirely. The whole adventure made me very happy.

There are a lot of things that make me very happy.

This morning I looked at a picture posted on the Internet by BBC. It is of a crowd of men who have been ordered by soldiers to strip to their underwear. The men look abject, fearful, and exhausted. In the crowd, highlighted by a red circle added by the news organizations a three-year old girl. Because BBC is not allowed media access to Gaza, it took them a week of working with a network of freelance journalists to identify the child. Her name is Julia. They had another picture of her with her father. The family has been displaced 5 times in the last 21 days. On the day the picture was taken the family was temporarily separated in the crowd of people carrying all of their belongings. Soldiers fired shots over their heads. Julia saw bodies of people who had been killed. Her cousin was killed in a drone strike. She is terrified of planes. She is just one of nearly a million children in Gaza in need of mental health support. 14,000 children have been killed in the war. The pictures and the story left me feeling distressed.

There are a lot of things that make me distressed.

The day before yesterday, I read “The Monster at the end of this book.” I have read that book hundreds of times. I like to read it out loud with my own version of Grover’s voice. I’m sure it isn’t much like the Sesame Street character, but it is my best imitation. On Wednesday, I read it multiple times for my two-year-old great niece who turned the pages and laughed at the story. Then I read “EEK! Halloween!” by Sandra Boynton: “There’s a big round moon in a dark, dark sky. The chickens are nervous. Do you know why?” So many poems are best when read aloud. And I had just the right audience. She loves to turn the pages. She is surprised at what she finds. “A pumpkin with flickering eyes . . . a mouse of enormous size . . . a wizard and a witch, and a spooky robot, too. . . Relax, silly chickens! It’s HALLOWEEN!” It makes me really happy to read books with children. The joy lingers whenever I think of it.

There are a lot of things that make me very happy.

Within the past week, I read a summary of a study carried out by scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group. They have completed a careful analysis of the ten deadliest extreme weather events of the past 20 years. Killer storms, heatwaves, and floods have killed more than 570,000 people in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change made every one of these events more intense and more likely. If we keep burning oil, gas, and coal, the suffering will continue and will get worse. The deadliest event of the last two decades was the 2011 drought in Somalia which killed more than a quarter of a million people. The study was completed before more recent events such as the storms that have left dozens dead in Spain this week, or the deadly hurricanes that hit southern states in the US in the past month. Among the conclusions of the study was a warning: “With every fraction of a degree of warming, we will see more record-breaking events that push countries to the brink, no matter how prepared they are.” It is hard to keep hope alive.

There are a lot of things that make me distressed.

After a week of traveling, I got home yesterday in time for a quick walk to the beach and then I ran an errand riding my bike. I got a new bicycle this year and it has an odometer. I’ve ridden nearly 1,400 miles on that bike in the past couple of months. It felt really good to be back on the bike. I took the long route home around the bay and through the State Park. After a few hours in the car it felt good to stretch my legs and feel the wind on my face.

There are a lot of things that make me very happy.

Like other people, my life is a roller coaster of emotions from joy to sadness and back to joy again. And I know that the emotions will continue to be up and down. With the rest of my fellow citizens of the United States, I will watch as the votes are tallied. I have already heard claims, many of which are false, of cheating. I know the honesty and integrity of many election volunteers and workers. I know the polls are indicating a close contest. I know it is unlikely that we will know the results on election night and it may take many more days. I might end up with joy or distress. It could go either way.

Whatever happens, I plan to read stories to children, ride my bike and when Halloween rolls around next year, God willing, I plan to be out on my porch giving candy to the children who come up my walk. I may even start keeping a list of the things that make me very happy.